Summer Demeuse & Michael Cavataio

Section 1: Needs Assessment

As we prepared our presentation for the Speech Language Pathology (SLP) students, it

was very beneficial to be learning in our class about the steps and importance of systematic

effective instruction. Learning how to properly prepare to teach and implement a plan before

making the final product made it easier to create and allowed us to put class knowledge into

practical use.

Our audience consisted of SLP students who ranged in age from 19-22 years-old. Prior to

completing our needs assessment, we met with a few students that gave us some insight on the

kind of learners, level of expertise, expectations, and needs of our learners. They informed us

that they learned best by observation, experience, and that they were example-learners. We

classified our learners as advanced beginner after they expressed having no background

knowledge on body mechanics, some anatomy in their undergraduate program, and detailed

anatomy within the past year from the neck up. In order to keep our audience satisfied with our

presentation and interested to learn, we needed to show them the benefits of proper body

mechanics/posture and how it can apply to their every-day life/occupation.

Section 2: Learner Centered Objectives

After learning about who our audience was and how they like to learn, we were eager to put

together something that interested them. We created a stem sentence, determined our outcome,

and examined Bloom’s Taxonomy wheel to create our Learner Centered Objectives. We tried to

choose challenging verbiage to create learning objectives that would be stimulating enough for

the SLP students. The following bullets include our Learner Centered Objectives:
  Cognitive: SLP students will improve their pre-Kahoot score after our presentation to
show a better understanding about body mechanics, elements, and principles by 50% as a
group.
 Psychomotor: SLP students will produce group demonstrations on body mechanics while
performing different daily activities with at least three key points noted.
 Affective: SLP students will improve the confidence survey score after our presentation
by 50% to demonstrate confidence in the area of posture and body mechanics.
Section 3: Content
Our learners are advanced beginners with some prior knowledge and past experiences that

we can connect our new information to. We wanted to provide them information that they can

recall, skills to correct poor body mechanics, and benefits and risks to appreciate the importance

of using proper body mechanics. We created a content: process ratio that would accomplish these

tasks. Our content included PowerPoint slides for general principles and knowledge, examples of

body mechanics in different scenarios, and the benefits and risks. This content allows them to

differentiate between proper and improper posture, participate in our activities to demonstrate

key points, understand the content through the Kahoot quiz, and reflect on their learning from

pre- to post-Kahoot score.

To consider the amount of new information that is digestible to new learners and keep the

SLP students engaged, we chunked our information and incorporated frequent activities into our

outline. We tried to break up the chunks with different pictures, videos, or activities. Our chunks

of information and outline of our presentation is in the bullets below:

 Body mechanics
o Elements
o Basic principles
o Stability
o In different daily activities (sitting, push/pull, lifting, carrying)
 Group demos (near end of presentation)
 Proper spine alignment
o Importance
o How it effects and its effect on body mechanics
 o Muscular implications
 Proper posture
o Basics
o Postural correction exercises
 Core muscles
o Importance
o How to activate them
o Strengthening exercises
 Benefits and risks of poor posture
o Work related injuries

*Connection to Prior Knowledge: The way that we chose to link these concepts to the SLP’s

prior learning was…

- Refresh their knowledge on the basic elements before introducing different activities

- Provide examples such as body mechanics while carrying a child which they may perform

for at their job.

- Provide information in the slides and work in an activity later in the presentation

- Linking the importance of core muscle activation for activities previously introduced in the

slides

- Providing information on the benefits and risks while relating it to work related injuries

- Providing cues that they can use at work, school, or in their daily lives.
Sources used:
 Karen Grossnickle, PT, DHSc. Postural Correction Tips. Postural Correction Tips. 2019.
 POSTURE TIPS & BODY MECHANICS FOR SPINE HEALTH. Restorative Care .
https://metrohealth.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CRC-1110-Body-Mechanics-Book-
May-2017.pdf. Accessed July 30, 2019.
 Doyle GR, McCutcheon JA. Body Mechanics. Clinical Procedures for Safer Patient Care.
https://opentextbc.ca/clinicalskills/chapter/3-2-body-mechanics/. Published November
23, 2015. Accessed July 30, 2019.
 YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPDi-S-bp_k. Published January 27,
2017. Accessed July 30, 2019.
 Plack MM, Driscoll MA. Teaching and Learning in Physical Therapy: from Classroom
to Clinic. Thorofare, NJ, USA: Slack Incorporated; 2017.
Section 4: Motivational Hook
In order to keep the SLP students engaged and focused on the material that we were

trying to teach them, we wanted to use a variety of motivational hooks by using personal

meaning and emotion. To begin the presentation, we used a funny meme of a cat slouched over

that says, “How’s your posture?”. Although the individuals were old enough to understand more

“adult-like” humor, we used this picture with a cat instead of something that could have been

taken offensively. Other hooks throughout the presentation we used to capture our audience were

in the form of pictures, videos, quotes, and demonstrations. The pictures that we used were

informative about our topic, but easy to understand. These included pictures with people/figures

that identified definitions or easy concepts. We used many pictures/memes to emotionally

connect them with humor. We used a magic school bus video to keep the mood lightened so the

SLP students didn’t feel like they were sitting in a traditional lecture. To gain attention on our

topic using personal interest, we also used pictures involving SLP’s and how their body

mechanics should be carrying a child. Instead of reading the information off the slides, we

provided demonstrations of proper body mechanics during different activities such as sitting,

carrying, pushing/pulling, and lifting.

Section 5: Content Boosters
To target all learning preferences, we included multiple different content boosters. We

included a Kahoot quiz at the beginning and end to target the assimilating learners who learn best

from lectures. We included group demonstrations where each pair of SLP students had to teach

the rest of the classroom by performing the activity and identify at least 3 key points that we

discussed prior in the lecture. This would target the converging/diverging learners who learn best

from group activities and role-playing. This was an active-learning strategy we wanted to use

because research shows that teaching others lead to the best retention of the information. Using

active learning strategies also gives the learners an opportunity to rehearse the content and

further facilitate learning among the SLP students. We incorporated an activity where we

introduced many different postural correction exercises and performed them with the SLP

students in a circle. This strategy would be beneficial for the accommodating/converging

learners as it was a guided practice and hands-on activity. The content boosters that we used

were dispersed throughout our presentation to keep the SLP’s engaged. We used these strategies

throughout to have repetition of information and reinforce their learning.

Section 6: Formative Assessment

The first formative assessment that we used was a pre-and post Kahoot quiz. We decided

to introduce the quiz to get our learners thinking about the important topics before we presented

them. Having them complete the quiz at the end as a summative assessment allowed us to see
their improvement and assess how well they learned the material. The other assessment that we

used at the beginning and end of our presentation was a self-confidence survey. In order to value

the information, we wanted a way to evaluate the affective domain learning objective that we

created. After providing information about body mechanics, the risks of poor body mechanics,

and how to correct it, we wanted them to feel confident to use what we taught them in their

everyday life. While the groups performed the demos, we were able to evaluate and asses the

SLP students on the information that we had taught them previously in the presentation. At the

end of the presentation we introduced the muddiest point to give the students a chance to ask us

questions and make sure that they were not confused on any topics that we discussed.

Section 7: Summary
Our learners were assessed using the Kahoot quiz results along with the self-confidence

survey results to compare their responses before and after our presentation. Using these

assessments, we were able to gauge how much they learned from our presentation and how

confident they felt after learning more information and actively participating in activities. Using

the group demonstrations in the middle of the presentation allowed us to assess the psychomotor

domain as they had to actively perform certain techniques.

 The information we received about our learners from other SLP students before creating

our presentation was very helpful. Since we are experts on the topic of body mechanics, it was

crucial to know that some were either novices or advanced beginners. This allowed us to prepare

a presentation that was appropriate for adults with collegiate knowledge, but simple enough that

they could learn an abundance of information in chunks. Knowing that the SLP students

preferred many different teaching styles gave us a lot of opportunities to use different content

boosters and activities. With little knowledge about the occupational demands of SLP’s, it was

helpful to know the different activities or positions they might be in so that we could incorporate

body mechanics topics that would pertain to them and allow us to link our new information to

their prior knowledge. Information that we wished we could have had before would be the

number of students that we were presenting to. We expected there to be more than 8 students

present, so our group demonstrations were limited to only 2 per group. This was not a huge

conflict, but we thought that they felt a little awkward in front of everyone since the groups were

so small.

After reviewing their results, we found that they had adequately met our learning

objectives which means that we achieved our goal of teaching the SLP students about body

mechanics. By using two assessments we were able to gain objective data from the SLP’s

subjective reports about how confident they felt and scores from the Kahoot to see if they learned

from our presentation. The demo was also used to assess them on whether they could teach

others about proper mechanics while also assessing the psychomotor domain. The most

challenging part of writing the objectives for the SLP students was incorporating a way to assess

them that was not too easy or too hard. We wanted to challenge the learners since they are

educated students but did not want to overwhelm them with complex questions.
 If we had to teach again, we decided that we would not chunk the information any

differently. We spent a lot of time preparing and re-arranging the information before presenting

it so that we separated the chunks of information with hooks and content boosters. Our content

boosters were very successful! The audience was excited and competitive during both Kahoot

quizzes and they were really involved and seemed like they had fun with the group demos. They

participated in the postural correction exercises and talked amongst one another about how they

made them feel.

Overall, we prepared a thorough presentation and took extra precautions to make sure

that we incorporated a lecture that would meet the needs of all learning types. We made sure that

we had interesting motivational hooks and content boosters to keep the SLP students engaged so

that we could properly deliver our information to them. We enjoyed presenting to them and

learned a lot about designing a presentation with quality information. The SLP students were

very receptive of this information and it seemed like they enjoyed a different type of lecture for

that day. We were very pleased about the outcome of our teaching experience and felt like

successful teachers. We value and will take this experience into our futures as physical

therapists. We talked about getting to know our patients and the types of learners they are before

trying to teach them exercises or information regarding their condition/limitations. Learning the

instructional design concept and successful ways to teach will allow us to have great

relationships with our patients.