Day 4: Tres

19^th of March, Year 2015 was the day we worked in groups of 3’s. It was a day that we engaged in a three-way teaching-learning session with our peers. Each person had three roles to play: a teacher, a teacher, and a teacher. Yes, all of us became teachers in different ways. The tasks that we had to do include teaching a skill unfamiliar to our peer, giving feedback to the one who taught the skill and giving feedback to the one who gave feedback.

I taught my peer how to play a classic PS1 game. It was very challenging because I had already developed strategies of my own in playing the game. I tried to teach these but most of them did not work so I had to adjust. Being this teacher, I realized that you need to be flexible because you need to adapt to your learner. You need to know your learner first before you can effectively teach them. Most of the time, learners would tend to learn faster if they are motivated and if the activities are in line with their interests.

Giving feedback is essential if you want to reinforce or eliminate something. There are tendencies that the teacher and the learner would not realize that they are doing something right or wrong because they are too focused on the task, so it is the job of the one giving feedback to be observant. Being this teacher, I realized the importance of good and respectful communication. If you want to give feedback effectively, you need to find the balance between positive and negative criticism because you would want to encourage positive change and improvement.

As a future physical therapist, there are three basic things that we have to have to become effective teachers: get to know our clients and establish a therapeutic relationship with them, be adept at the things that we will be teaching and always think about our and our learner’s learning experience.