Teaching Class | 03.26.15

Last Thursday’s activity served as the culminating activity for the course. After all the classroom activities and modules, we were finally given the chance to apply everything we’ve learned in an hour of teaching. As such, our target audience were the year 3 PT students and our planned activity was to teach them a few exercises through circuit training.

One of the most important things we’ve learned as a group during the implementation of our instructional design was the importance of flexibility. We spent days polishing our instructional design, even meeting a few hours before the actual activity to plan out and rehearse the things that we’ll do. Thus, we were very surprised to learn that the interns also had a different activity prepared for the year 3 students. In a short time, we had to collaborate with them to make everything fit in one hour. Sadly, we had to scrap most of the things we worked on in order to come to a compromise.

Although discouraging, we tried to adapt to the sudden changes and we realized how important planning was to a teaching activity. During that time, we had to demonstrate exercises that the interns taught us 15 minutes before the start of the class. We had a hard time because we weren’t prepared for that activity and I think that we weren’t able to give our best.

Another important thing to know is the attitude and capabilities of your students. We already knew that the year 3 students were physically active and fit and so, we prepared the exercises according to that. However, we underestimated them and learned that they were far more fit than we had anticipated. To be fair, we had only one chance at assessing and teaching them. Still, the importance of understanding and knowing the client before the session was given emphasis.

I think that all these lessons can be useful in future practice. The same concepts also apply when treating clients. I also think that it’s important to learn from one’s mistakes in order to become better at what they do. I hope that in future practice, even if I do make some sort of mistake, I will be able to take that into account and use it to make myself a better therapist.