A PLN is simply the collection of networked contacts you have through your social media channels that may share an interest, information, or skills that you want to learn more about. I have many colleagues that I follow through Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, and I have learned numerous fascinating new things through just little snippets of information they share.

I have two primary camps within my PLN, but sometimes they overlap. I have the group of people that I follow for massage and manual therapy information, and the other group I follow for educational technology and teaching/learning theory. By participating in discussions and interactions with members of this network in each of these two camps, I contribute to their PLN and they contribute to mine. Facebook posts, blog articles, or even short Twitter sentences have often given me great ideas or taught me fascinating new things that I never would have learned otherwise.

The PLN is often able to deliver “just in time learning” (getting some aspect of learning/information right when you need it and right when you need to apply it). When you directly apply the things you learn from your PLN in some other context, the learning is more solid and long-lasting. So, I would strongly encourage you to use your social media tools, not only for fun, but as a real PLN. It is a great learning opportunity that is just starting to peek over the horizon.

I met Aaron a number of years ago, but I have not had the great fortune to spend time working directly with him in his clinic while he works his therapeutic mastery. I still hope to do that some day. Yet, I have studied his work and have had deep and lengthy discussions with many who have spent valuable time with him. I have worked with dozens of his students in classes I have taught over the years. They all speak of him with a degree of respect, admiration, and awe which I rarely hear about anyone else.

Aaron has consistently demonstrated an absolutely selfless devotion to those he has treated in his clinic and those he has instructed in the unique and innovative methods he has developed. To continue working in the clinic as hard as he does long past when many others would have worn out is inspiring to a great degree.

I think all this work that he has done is made ever more important and valuable because of who he is as a person. Many others would have attempted to capitalize on this recognition for extensive monetary gain or fame. Neither of those have ever appeared to be motivating factors for Aaron. He has selflessly and tirelessly given away so much solely to help relieve the suffering of others and teach other clinicians how to do the same.

We don’t have a lifetime achievement award in our profession, but if we did, Aaron would certainly be one of the most deserving candidates. Having just returned from the ABMP School Issues Forum where we discussed some of the key pioneers that brought us to this place in our profession, I would like to take time out to honor another of those whose work will live on with us for many years. He will unquestionably go down in history as a true bodywork pioneer and selfless giver that we should all honor and admire. I will be one of the first to raise a glass to toast the life and work of this truly inspiring man. Thank you Aaron for all you have done and may we all strive to emulate this model you have shown us!

So many of us rely on published research in peer-reviewed journals has the gold standard for determining efficacy of our clinical treatment methods. To find out that such a high percentage of the studies are flawed or seriously skewed in the reporting of the results completely undermines the trust and value the general public puts in (supposedly) objective published research science.

Currently there is a surge of interest in establishing a research base for the clinical efficacy of massage therapy. Do these findings cast a shadow over our efforts to bring current research to the massage therapy world? I would say yes and no. Clearly what this paper has identified is that one must always follow the money trail in funding sources for studies to evaluate potential conflicts of interest. So for that reason I would say yes, we can no longer implicitly trust that just because something is published in a peer-reviewed journal that it is an accurate report of the findings.

I would also argue that while this paper shows some serious flaws in the medical research process, the large majority of these flaws are in studies evaluating pharmaceutical interventions because of the high financial stakes involved.  There simply aren’t the same high financial stakes in manual therapy treatments. Consequently, that shields us to some degree from the temptation of distorting findings because of the potential for rich financial reward.

It is a sad commentary that financial gain has corrupted so many of our institutions, individuals, and processes. Hopefully, in the manual therapy field we can avoid these landmines and continue to focus our attention on the primary goals which should be the objective of all medical research science. Namely, improving the health and well-being of all members of the ecosystem we all inhabit.

Boutron, I., Dutton, S., Ravaud, P., & Altman, D. G. (2010). Reporting and interpretation of randomized controlled trials with statistically nonsignificant results for primary outcomes. JAMA, 303(20), 2058-2064

In the former world of education this seemed to make sense. There was mainly one place to “get your education” and that was a classroom in a school. Consequently, it was appropriate to suggest that the more time you spent in a school classroom the more educated you were. Anyone who is paying attention now will recognize that education is extremely different than it was even 30 years ago. However, we are still stuck in many of the old models of educational measurement.

In our field, education at both the entry-level as well as continuing professional development is measured in hours. This is appropriately labeled as BIS (Butt In Seat) hours, because actually that’s the only thing that is really being measured. A student can come to a classroom and sit their butt in the seat for three hours, but be texting and talking to their friends on their mobile phone the entire time. Has that student actually accumulated three hours worth of educational content that was delivered in the classroom?

Another student can read a discussion thread on Facebook with intense academic debate from some of our profession’s most esteemed educators. It may actually take only a short time to read this thread, but the ideas stimulated by the discussion from these highly knowledgeable participants stimulates creative thought processes in the student that lead to great new understanding. Academic credit for engaging in this activity? Zip…

I have had this exact experience myself numerous times. I’m in the middle of a complex activity with programming in an online learning course and run up against a technical snag that I don’t know how to bypass. I quickly jump onto the user forums, and go watch a short training video on YouTube for solving this exact problem I am having. Significant learning has occurred and it is exactly what I needed to find out to move my project to another level. Formerly, I might have felt stumped by this process and tried to take a class on this particular software application to learn how to use it for exactly what I was trying to do. I might have sat through several classes and gotten credit for being in attendance at those classes but never learned the exact information that I needed to learn.

What these issues illustrate is that we need a new metric, or method of measurement. It is a completely outdated model to continue attempting to measure education simply by the number of hours one sits in front of somebody talking to them. I would love to hear input from others that might lead us toward a new model of measuring education that will actually have meaning for the new ways that people learn in our current society. How do you think we should measure education?

At the beginning of the last century there were a comparatively large number of medical schools in the United States. There was very little standardization in the curriculum or designated curriculum guidelines for what was taught in the schools. As a result, there was no consistency in what one can expect from a student graduating from medical school. Most of the schools were small proprietary schools that were staffed by local doctors who had limited training themselves.  Most instruction revolved around delivery of numerous lectures with very little real-world training.

Fast forward 100 years to the present day. We have over 1500 massage therapy schools in this country. There is very little if any standardization in the curriculum that is taught in the schools. There are many schools that were started as proprietary ventures primarily as an income stream, without adequate thought given to the needs for high-quality instruction. There are numerous parallels between our current educational situation and that which Flexner faced with medical schools in the early 1900s.

We have now begun to see a decline in the explosive growth of students entering massage schools. It is most likely that we will begin to see a reduction in the number of schools in the coming years. However, if we are ever going to be taken seriously in the community of healthcare professions, we have to make serious changes and adjustments to our schools. There will have to be increased standards for curriculum content as well as instructor qualifications. It is encouraging to see movement going in this direction but we need great energy directed toward these efforts in order for them to succeed and for the profession to flourish.

Social media and different types of digital communication, such as blogs, have created an alternative method for transmitting information. Formerly, information was directed to us in a one-way fashion. We stood in front of the information delivery, be it television, radio, books, newspapers, teachers, or whatever. That information stream came to us in a one-way direction.

Now it’s a different ballgame. With blogs, articles, or information posts to Facebook, it is significantly different.  Not only do you get the original writers perspective, but you get the comments, both pro and con, from various readers. Because you are provided with comments on different sides of an argument you have the opportunity to consider multiple facets of someone’s perspective. The ability to simultaneously hold both sides of an argument is a method that helps an individual develop critical thinking skills.

Consequently, we might even be at a point where we can encourage and enhance the development of critical thinking skills even more effectively than before. However, that is highly dependent on whether or not people spend time reading and considering this content material at a sufficient depth. It is also dependent on whether or not our teachers can encourage us to think about the various different facets of an issue. We will have to shift to a new paradigm about information and learning. No longer can learning be viewed as an acquisition of the “right” information. We must see it as a process of constantly building and breaking down different knowledge structures. This will be a giant challenge for those of us schooled under the old models but having to teach people in these new models.

However, there is a flipside to this which may not be as advantageous. I was thinking about this the other day when talking to someone about how much longer it takes me to read a book than it used to. There are only so many hours in the day and much of my time is consumed by reading web pages, blogs, research updates, and other electronic communications. When does that leave time to sit down and move through an entire printed book? I do think there can be a potential downfall from this process.

One of the things that happens when you read a book is that you have a long and continuous thought process that is strung together through multiple chapters. The author may weave together many complex ideas and show the linkage between those ideas throughout the course of the book. By reading a book and considering these complexities, we build critical thinking and reasoning skills.

One of the things I have noticed in both the classroom and our society these days is that we are demonstrating a serious lack of critical thinking skills. It is entirely possible that our reliance on easy access information has limited our ability, or at least our training, to think critically. As educators we must make it imperative to emphasize the teaching of critical thinking and not rely on outdated models that emphasize simply mastering content. Those days are over and that is no longer a useful educational strategy.

The most interesting facet of what he mentioned was about changes in how education will be delivered in the coming years. He was speaking mostly about higher education and mentioned that it would become much less placed-based. In the past, higher education has been about going to an institution to acquire what they could offer. What they offered was only available to those lucky enough to be able to attend. The web is revolutionizing education and making tremendous learning resources available to everyone, not just those who can afford the university.

I have been watching how this change is affecting our profession and eagerly encouraging participation in the change as well. One of the challenges facing massage practitioners when they attempt to learn more advanced skills after leaving school is cognitive overload. Either with textbooks or workshops, you get a tremendous amount of information that looks fascinating, but where do you begin? How do you retain the information and put it to work? That is an example of the overload that many face both in the classroom and in advanced studies later in their career.

In a web-based training environment information can be packaged into much smaller quantities which makes it far more digestible and easy for the practitioner to access. This smaller chunking of information also increases the likelihood that a person will be able to absorb concepts and put them into practice. However, this new educational direction requires educators to rethink the way they deliver content and their learning strategies.

Too many educators still focus on covering large quantities of content as a goal for student achievement. Yet, students often leave these classes or courses without an understanding of how to apply that content to real world situations. We need to break out of that model and think more about skills and abilities the real world practitioner actually needs.

Web-based training models offer an excellent opportunity to package content into smaller chunks as well as create situational learning that is most relevant for the individual. It is an exciting time in education and offers opportunities that we have never seen before. Let’s dive in!

After speaking with her I was reflecting about this situation and how I sometimes take for granted the advantages of being small. I work as a primary member of two small organizations, OMERI and Education and Training Solutions. In each of these organizations we can make decisions quickly without going through some corporate bureaucracy. In this current and fast-changing business climate that has extreme advantages. If we see opportunities or benefits in changing course right away, we simply do it. We don’t have to wade through all the layers of permissions and explanations to others.

It has always been the goal of many businesses to grow bigger. However, in this current climate of fast-changing times it’s wise to remember the concepts presented decades ago by E. F. Schumacher in his wonderful book, Small Is Beautiful.  In addition, it is a much more environmentally responsible way to view our future.

While at the meeting I did a presentation on current trends in online learning. It is exciting to see the growth in this area and many massage education programs are recognizing the wealth of possibilities with online education. Distance education has often suffered from a general bias against it based on some peoples’ experience with poorly-constructed courses. But let’s face it, there are some pretty bad classroom courses as well. What needs to be emphasized are the types of high quality educational practices that can be accomplished with distance education.

I recently joined forces with Jan Schwartz at Education and Training Solutions and our goal is to bring high quality online education to the massage field as well as other disciplines. Click here to see an example of some of the different types of course activities that can be used in quality online education.

I have become fascinated with online education and the superior ways in which we can teach complex clinical reasoning skills in the online environment. Our online orthopedic massage courses are centered around these concepts. We’d love to have you come join us in one of those upcoming courses!