E-learning for everyone?

I’m about to share a secret with you: my husband and I enjoy massages. We have a new membership massage center near our home, and during their grand opening my husband bought a bunch of ½ off coupons. They’ll probably work exactly as planned, as we won’t want to stop going even when we use up our discounts…

The other day, waiting for our therapists to call our names, I flipped through the magazine in the waiting room. It was clearly an industry magazine, written for professional massage therapists. One cover article caught my eye: E-learning for massage therapists.

As I scanned the article, I had to smile. The author spent the first section pointing out not only the time/place advantages of e-learning, but also the research about e-learning being a more effective way to learn and retain new information.

The author went on to discuss the argument about the challenges of teaching hands’ on skills via e-learning.

A lot like teaching caregiving over the internet, I think. Yes, there is the hands’ on component. But if you don’t have a very clear understanding of the foundational concepts, the hands’ on skills may be simply rote series of steps. If you don’t, for example, understand what happens to the person’s perceptions and awareness with memory loss or dementia, it will be hard to know how to modify the hands’ on care you provide, especially on the fly.

I actually think it’s kind of cool that this same approach to teaching is reaching out to a vast variety of professions. For my part, I’d like my massage therapist to understand muscles and joints really well. At the same time, I’d like my caregiver – or my mom’s caregiver – to have a solid foundational grasp of body mechanics and other concepts that will help her be the best caregiver possible.

If you’re on board and using e-learning for your staff training, give yourself a pat on the back. You’re using an approach to training that helps you build the best, brightest caregivers – or masseuses!