We're coming to the end of a long academic year in New Zealand, so that means lots of examination and assessment of nervous students. This time last year I took over a postgraduate paper called Health Professional Practice with a view to 'reshaping' it. For years it had been delivered in a standard fashion: block study, lots of lectures and tutorials - mostly directed at students rather than engaging them, boring assessments. I decided to shake things up a bit. The paper needed to be much more about what made the students 'tick' as health professionals; their experiences, ideas and issues. But it also needed to get them to critically examine their professions in ways they hadn't … [Read more...] about Innovation
Transforming physiotherapy
Ben Cormack wrote a post on Facebook yesterday that touched on an important point about innovation and creativity in physiotherapy. The post read: Therapeutic exercise can often literally suck out all the motivation to do it. It can be so meaningless & monotonous. We exercise because it makes us feel good or we want to look good. We play sport because we enjoy the social engagement or the game. We engage in meaningful activities that use our bodies because we can switch off from the world or they provide fulfilment. We need to tap into the things that inspire people to move rather than just tell them to exercise (link). Notice how in each case Ben argues that we do … [Read more...] about Transforming physiotherapy
Pushing at open doors
I have had the good fortune to spend time this last week with one of the world's foremost digital education specialists. Steve Wheeler is someone who has been at the forefront of educational innovation for over a decade now, and he spent last week and this week at AUT working with colleagues in my school. The highlight of his visit so far, for me at least, was a study day that we held over the weekend to look at 21st first century education. We spent the morning at a new school that has embraced the idea flexible learning environments (FLEs). Teaching at my university is often anything but flexible, and classrooms, curricula, and teaching and learning practices often look more rigid the … [Read more...] about Pushing at open doors
Physiotherapie beurteilen
This German translation of the article 'Judging physiotherapy' posted earlier this week, was kindly produced by CPN member Filip Maric. WCPT-Präsident Emma Stokes, Professor Peter O'Sullivan und andere haben sich diese Woche in einer Twitter-Diskussion damit auseinandergesetzt wie man in der Physiotherapie eine Kultur schaffen könnte die Wandel und Veränderung pflegt und fördert (siehe @ekstokes twitter feed für den 29. Mai). Die Idee von ‘Raum ohne Urteil’ wurde als eine positivere Herangehensweise zu Veränderung vorgeschlagen, als die häufiger übliche gegenseite Kritik unter Physiotherapeuten auf eine abwertende Art und Weise (@karenlitzyNYC, 29. Mai). Ein paar Tage zuvor … [Read more...] about Physiotherapie beurteilen
Judging physiotherapy
WCPT President Emma Stokes, Professor Peter O'Sullivan and others have been engaged this week in a Twitter discussion about how to create a culture in physiotherapy that nurtures change (see @ekstokes twitter feed for 29th May). The idea of 'space without judgement' was suggested as a more positive approach to change than physiotherapists perpetually 'bashing each other' (@karenlitzyNYC, 29 May). A few days earlier, Laura Opstedal had written about Letting go of traditions in physical therapy, arguing that resistance to change was a big barrier to progress, and that exploring 'the new' might be a creative way to proceed. This post followed nicely on from Roger Kerry's piece … [Read more...] about Judging physiotherapy
If you’re looking for innovation, regulatory authorities need to change
One of the challenges facing the physiotherapy profession today is not so much what the future might be, but how to get there. Innovation requires creativity and imagination; going beyond oneself and the limits on what might be possible. Georges Bataille called this transgression, and his work explores why our moral codes are set 'here' and not 'over there'. His writings concentrate on some of most sensitive topics, particularly to do with sex, because, he argued, it's here where we choose to apply some of our most stringent social conventions and norms. Bataille's idea was that we need to explore ways of thinking and being that are far beyond our present boundaries of convention if … [Read more...] about If you’re looking for innovation, regulatory authorities need to change
Creativity in physiotherapy
Anyone who lives with, knows, or has trained as an artist will be painfully aware of how lacking in creativity a lot of physiotherapy education and practice is. My brother is a photographer and a teacher, and I am frequently reminded of how differently he responds to things. Where he often thinks like an artist, I often default to the kinds of design-thinking that Grace Jeffers talks about when she says that "Design thinking is about solving a problem, but art thinking is about feeling your way to a solution" (link). It's not that there's anything particularly wrong with the way physiotherapists are trained to think - there's certainly a lot to be said for the kinds of deductive … [Read more...] about Creativity in physiotherapy