Paul

About me

Professional background and current role

My main job role is a Chiropractor, working in private practice in Devon, England. I have been in this role since 2012 and was a sports masseuse and personal trainer before that. Since 2016 my secondary role has been as a lecturer on various healthcare courses at a small university in the South West of England. This has expanded to include a HE lead role in the Health Studies program.

In relation to education, I have done a PGCE in Further/Higher Education, completed 2019, the SFHEA from AdvanceHE in 2020, and currently doing the H817 Openness and Innovation in eLearning in order to complete my MA Open (in Education in 2022). All relating to teaching/delivering education. Before the education qualifications I achieved a Doctor of Chiropractic degree in 2012 after previously completing a BSc in Natural Sciences (2003) and a BA (Open) in 2008.


Why I found the project interesting

I actually find this project (Using digital storytelling to explore social/cultural/ethical dilemmas) interesting as a means to explore new ways of teaching and learning. I come from a more traditional lecturing style background but I have realised how many things I learn about myself by hearing and reading other people's stories. So this should make sense as a means of learning for others that I can apply in education. I can see the benefits of it in terms of being more interesting to read than a traditional PowerPoint and this is probably a big part of what makes it easier to remember and understand. I can see that this has parallels with the way memory champions can memorise a deck of 52 playing cards by linking them to a story (Caplan et al., 2019) and how this can help us to understand and treat trauma in Healthcare (Blakey et al., 2019).


How this project maps to the context I’ve described

Having experienced both student and teacher roles over the years:

  1. It will help me to learn new methods of teaching.

  2. It will help me have greater empathy for the student journey using this method.

  3. It may help me understand and treat patient's chronic pain based on their stories and concepts of their pain.