Informing — and knowing

Learning is perceived as a process of personal and social construction where people are actively involved in making sense of information they interact with, rather than passively receiving it (Kuhthau 2004). This cumulative and developmental process involves the whole person in thinking, acting, reflecting, discovering ideas, making connections, and transforming prior knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values into new knowledge (Dewey 1933). I’m an educator for much of my time. When I think about it, I’ve been an educator for most of my clinical career – after all, when I helped people learn how to shower and dress again after a stroke, I was teaching. When I help someone work out how to organise their day to optimise energy levels, I’m teaching. And when I interact online in some of the Facebook groups I’m part of, I’m also teaching. Teaching is the process of attending to people’s needs, experiences and feelings, and intervening so that they learn particular things, and go beyond the given. http://infed.org/mobi/what-is-teaching/ When I look at what people do for continuing education, and also how we approach helping people with pain to understand something about how their nervous system works, I think we often do a fine job of providing information. “Information is to behaviour change as spaghetti is to a brick”, said Prof Bill Fordyce, father of behavioural approaches to pain management. As clinicians and educato...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Chronic pain Coping strategies Education Education/CME Professional topics data information knowledge meaning Source Type: blogs