Teaching & Learning Philosophy

Narrative Statement

As a unique educator, I understand that I am a multimodal learner, including read, write, aural, and kinesthetic. My teaching preferences are to provide apprenticeship, nurturing, and development when teaching others. I observe that my strengths are making these simple for people and my learners to understand. I have learned that it is not beneficial not to explain a concept or even teach someone if you can not simplify the material. As an Occupational therapy student, I have developed ways to understand my learner's needs by using google forms or completing a survey on what the learner knows about the content or a specific topic.

Through my experience in this course, I believe that the core of effective teaching is knowing your learner's needs and asking for feedback. At times educators may assume the learners understand the material but are not due to the educator not understanding their needs and limitations in learning. In my future role as an OT, I want my learners/clients to take away or achieve from the educational interaction they have with me by using plain language and feeling comfortable asking me questions. I will support my clients by making sure I remember health literacy and providing resources, and communicating with my clients to understand for better health outcomes. As a future OT, I see my roles as educator and therapist interacting by teaching a stroke or TBI patient how to perform grooming. One example, with a patient who had an R CVA (stroke) to be aware of their shoulder to prevent shoulder subluxation by presenting different ways to use a sling or use pillows in bed. In clinical practice, asking patients or clients to repeat what I said to make sure they understood and utilizing a teach-back method to engage patients or clients.

This semester my peers and I taught counseling psychology class on children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The links above show what we taught the class and the resources we provided.