26th July 2018 Dept of Geography and Planning, The University of Liverpool Keynote Speaker: Professor Dee Heddon, University of Glasgow A one-day interdisciplinary event focused on walking research, practice and culture. Our definition of walking is welcoming to all kinds of bodies and includes orthotics, sticks, wheels and other assistive technologies. This symposium is open to students, academics and anyone else interested in exploring the more than pedestrian. We invite proposals for 20 minute paper presentations, but are also open to creative and innovative methods. We are also interested in facilitating a small number of walks. Subjects covered may include, but are not limited … [Read more...] about Beyond The Pedestrian: Walking in Research, Theory, Practice and Performance
Radical new ways to think about physiotherapy
The way we think about physiotherapy is overdue a radical shake-up. A couple of months ago, Charles Jennings wrote an interesting piece about the way our use of knowledge is changing, and these ideas have some important implications the way next generations of physiotherapists are learn their craft. Jennings' piece is titled 'Learning in the Collaboration Age' (link), and it focuses on the role collaboration is playing in learning. Jennings contrasts what he calls 'old' ways of acquiring knowledge (often characterised as 'knowing that'), with what is becoming increasingly common these days (knowing how, knowing why). Jennings argues that 'Although experiential and social learning … [Read more...] about Radical new ways to think about physiotherapy
30 Days of September: Day 28
Today's image was suggested by Hazel Horobin. Click on the image to open it to full size. You can then save it and turn it into a desktop background by following these brief instructions. … [Read more...] about 30 Days of September: Day 28
How 21st century (higher) education can, and must change
There are many critical thinkers interested in education, particularly since the advent of the internet; distributive learning technologies like Google, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter; and personal computing. This video will resonate with a lot of CPN members and others who work with students, in university and college programmes, and with the challenges of thinking 'otherwise' about learning and teaching in physiotherapy, medicine, health care, and elsewhere. In this video, Gardner Campbell from Baylor University talks about why it is that the widespread availability of the Internet and social media haven't yet managed to really penetrate the university. We're not talking here about … [Read more...] about How 21st century (higher) education can, and must change
New: Anatomy
These 30 Days of September posts are supposed to be provocative. Not the kinds of provocation that comes from empty gestures and tired clichés (hopefully not, at least). But the kind of provocation that contain grains of truth (cliché-related humour). So, fair warning, what I'm about to say may upset some people. But I'm really only trying to articulate what should be reasonably obvious by now to anyone with a mobile device and an Internet connection. So here goes. A day will come soon, when students will no longer need anatomy taught in the traditional way: with endless lectures full of mind-numbing names and abstract mechanics. Students will no longer need to stay up late into … [Read more...] about New: Anatomy
Are we gatekeepers, or locksmiths?
This post was published earlier on Michael Rowe's blog. Micheal is a member of the Critical Physiotherapy Network and has given permission to reproduce his blogpost here. David Nicholls at Critical Physiotherapy recently blogged about how we might think about access to physiotherapy education, and offers the metaphor of a gated community as one possibility. The staff act as the guards at the gateway to the profession and the gate is a threshold across which students pass only when they have demonstrated the right to enter the community. This got me thinking about the metaphors we use as academics, particularly those that guide how we think about our role as examiners. David’s … [Read more...] about Are we gatekeepers, or locksmiths?
Teaching and learning has always been subjective
"It seems easier to far too many teachers to imagine that students do work the way machines do — that they can be scored according to objective metrics and neatly compared to one another. Schools, and the systems we’ve invented to support them, condition us to believe that there are always others (objective experts or even algorithms) who can know better than us the value of our own work. I’m struck by the number of institutions that for all intents and purposes equate teaching with grading — that assume our job as teachers is to merely separate the wheat from the chaff. And I find myself truly confused when anyone suggests to me that there is a way for us to do this kind of work … [Read more...] about Teaching and learning has always been subjective