Some advice from our Physio and Educationalist Daniel Lawrence. Daniel worked in Education for 10 years and holds a Post Graduate Certificate of Education.
The pendulum has swung very quickly from an online CPD hunt to an online CPD extravaganza, with some of us now feeling overwhelmed as we try to avoid missing every webinar on offer. The old saying applies here – quality not quantity – I am not really referring to the Webinar quality but this is undoubtedly important to determine. Avoid Whack Jobs selling Snake Oil!
The aim of this post is to help you extract more learning from your next Insta or Facebook Live CPD session. I will also touch upon keeping evidence – with the caveat that you check your own associations CPD evidence requirements.
How to maximize CPD from an Instagram Live CPD session.
1. Make a note of the session date, presenter, and perhaps take a screen shot for reference and evidence.
2. Make notes of the key points you learnt from the session. You don’t need to write down everything or every key point, focus on what you learnt rather than what you already knew. Aim for 1-3 things. Even if you learnt much more we are going to just reflect on 1-3 of these. Unless you have all day, perhaps you do!
3. Lets go through an example of reflective learning using Kolbs experiential learning cycle (Kolb 1984).
Concrete Experience: Online CPD is not as practical as we would like but its the best we can get at this time and, if you have friend or family member to use, perhaps you can get hands on. If not then you will need to perform tests or exercises on yourself in order to get the ‘concrete experience’. Lets imagine you have just been taught the FADIR test for the hip to test for FAI. So that’s the Flexion ADuction Internal Rotation (FADIR) test for FemoroActetabular Impingement (FAI) at the hip. You could do this on a family member, friend, or yourself. I often end up doing tests etc on myself, so you’re not alone if you do too!
Reflective Observation: Think about and write down what you have just done in more depth than ‘I flexed the hip and…’ Instead you could start with ‘The FADIR test brings the anterior femoral neck closer to the hip joint socket and cartilage, potentially causing an impingement between the femur and acetabulum. This may cause pain and the available range of motion is likely to be different between individuals.
Abstract Conceptualisation: Fancy term! It just means making sense of things and putting them into context. To do this…Read about the test after the online webinar, read about it on Physio-Pedia for example and then read one recent research study about the test or the FAI pathology. In doing this you are likely to learn how valid and reliable the test is and to also learn much more about FAI. The good news is all this takes extra time and that is extra CPD time for you to log. 15 minute webinar + 45 minutes reading = 1 hour of FREE CPD. Don’t stop here read on…
Active Experimentation: If you can’t see how your new learning will be useful in clinic then its not going to be remembered! Make some notes that you could use in clinic. This is always very important to me when I’m teaching. How does this information relate to a patient in front of you? Can it help them? I often use ‘clinical cheat sheets’ like the one attached which shows 4 clinical differences between OA hip and Gluteal tendinopathy. You could use this in clinic to help you remember the key points. Using your new learning in clinic and making a note of it would further strengthen your learning and add more CPD time.
Finally, more good news. If you have read this far you have just completed some CPD! You could use the Kolb cycle for your next Webinar with Mike Grice and myself.
All the best guys and I hope to see you soon, online or preferably in person 🙂
Daniel
@ThePhysioChannel