Leading Educators in the Professions to Teach Hands-On Skills Distantly: Lessons Learned From Physical Therapy

• In Event: Reimagining and Reinventing Health Professions Education in COVID's Environment: Moving From Crisis to Opportunity

Abstract

Purposes:
The purposes of this paper are to: 1) describe how educators in the physical therapy community pivoted quickly to provide didactic, psychomotor, and clinical experiences in distance environments, and 2) provide examples of distance learning technology principles used to teach psychomotor, affective, and critical thinking skills to continue students’ learning trajectory.
Perspective and theoretical framework:
COVID affected ability of programs in the professions to provide in-person education. While health care relies heavily on instruction and assessment of hands-on psychomotor skills and affective behaviors (Gagnon, et al, 2020), it was also problematic for professions like engineering (Horvitz et al, 2019).
The SECTIONS model provides a structure with which to strategize and adapt to an evolving educational environment. The model’s acronym represents the considerations: Students, Ease of use, Cost, Teaching methods, Interaction, Organization, Networking, Security (Bates, 2019).
Data sources
Data sources informing this paper include: 1) faculty focus groups and webinars, 2) impact surveys, and 3) literature on current educational and health care environments.
Methods, techniques
Due to health concerns, the rapid response needed to pivot in-person classroom interactions to virtual required adaptations to hands-on educational programs. The first included academic and clinical faculty development in distance education technologies; a webinar series on distance education was provided and was open-archived for future use. Second, recommendations for virtually providing psychomotor and affective skill instruction, as well as skills assessment, was required.

Third, curriculum enhancement to respond to the pandemic included providing knowledge of COVID-19 and enhanced infection control procedures both personally and within the health care setting. Webinars and other resources were created by clinician experts and were available on a Learning Center for use by educational programs.

To assist reentering the healthcare environment, clinical and academic collaborators created a guidance document to assist with transition. Students were virtually guided by instructors to provide telerehabilitation options, such as examinations and teaching exercises. While immersed in the clinical setting, students, instructors, health care personnel, and patients all experienced greater physical, spatial, and infection control barriers.

Arguments/point of view
Though the pandemic is still present, lessons were learned from the early experiences. By using educational models, theories, and previous experiences, programs have pivoted quickly and creatively to deliver educational content. Graduate and health outcomes will need to be assessed to ultimately determine true success of these endeavors. The psychological impact on student engagement, faculty burnout and moral injury, and trauma-informed communication throughout the academic and clinical education is still to be determined. Distance education methods used during the pandemic may become future best educational practices and provide more inclusive educational environments.

Scholarly significance
Since the pandemic has been a revolutionary event in higher education, there is little published to assist hands-on profession to educate in socially-distanced environments. This work elucidates one profession’s leveraging of an educator network to be able to continue to prepare the workforce to address patient needs.

Authors

• Anne Reicherter, American Physical Therapy Association

• Jennifer L. Jewell, Pennsylvania State University