Massage Therapy Instructors
Classroom Coach
Are you ready to supercharge your instructional strategies and elevate classroom dynamics? Do you want to crowdsource ideas with massage educators from across the country to overcome shared challenges? Would you welcome an arsenal of practical tools, designed specifically for massage instructors? If you answer “Yes!” then Massage Classroom Coach is for you.
These complimentary teacher resources are curated or created by Anne Williams. Anne’s passion for massage therapy education, learning theory, and instructional design inspires an ongoing desire to support massage instructors with knowledge, skills, and resources that make teaching more efficient, effective, and enjoyable.
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2 Hours of NCBTMB-Approved ce for teachers!
40 Activities that Anchor Student Learning
Most of us put a lot of effort into our lessons but may forget to formally anchor content at the end of learning experiences. As a result, much of the learning gets lost because students haven't fully organized it in memory before they move on to the next thing. In this online course, we’ll learn instructional strategies that energize your classrooms. Instead of passively listening to an instructor, students exercise their thinking skills, collaborate with peers, develop personal connections to course material, and have fun while they organize content in memory for better recall. Watch a beautifully designed video then explore more than 40 unique activities complete with descriptions, directions, and worksheets. Along the way, earn 2 NCBTMB-approved CE hours and grow your teaching toolbox.
1.5 Hours of NCBTMB-Approved CE
Client Assessment in Massage Education with Whitney Lowe
When it comes to client assessment, what should schools teach? What knowledge and skills should graduates demonstrate, and what resources do instructors need? Are robust assessment skills still necessary in the current massage therapy environment and what about all these special tests? These are some of the questions we explore through a video conversation with Whitney Lowe and the results of the Massage Classroom Coach Assessment Survey. Join the discussion and share your thoughts. Earn 1.5 NCBTMB-approved CE hours when you pass an 8-question multiple-choice quiz.
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The Classroom Hack That Instantly Improves Student Engagement
Motivating adult learners can be challenging. You put time and effort into your curriculum only to see them sneaking a look at emails on their phones or nodding off in the corner. This activity checks all the boxes for strategies that engage adults. It is easy to implement in a variety of subject areas and improves critical thinking while encouraging a supportive learning environment. Read the blog and download the activity directions.
1 Hour NCBTMB-Approved CE (Free)
Priming: The Education Game Changer
As a classroom strategy, priming refers to the intentional actions and methods educators use at the beginning of a lesson to prepare and engage students for learning. The aim is to create receptive mindsets that enhance knowledge acquisition and understanding. Priming reduces student anxiety, taps into students’ prior knowledge, sparks curiosity, and provides context for new learning. In this popular multimedia online course, you’ll explore practical and effective methods for priming student learning. Find out more information and register now!
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Harnessing the Power of Rubrics for Hands-On Skill Learning
When you work with massage teachers, you often hear a similar story. Instructors teaching later modules or terms report that different cohorts of students trained by different instructors demonstrate dissimilar foundational skills. One group has strong draping skills but forgets to use bolsters, while another group can’t put together a Swedish massage but knows how to use active isolated stretches (which aren’t taught in the curriculum). Rubrics are the key to skill consistency because they outline the performance criteria for techniques based on objective measures. Are you describing hands-on methods objectively? Read this article and drop the subjectivity. Your students (and the instructors teaching in subsequent terms) will thank you!
1 Hour NCBTMB-Approved CE (Free)
Better Thinking, Better Learning, Better World
Today’s students are mired in survival thinking. Their thought lives revolve around dealing with immediate challenges, and they’re burned out, overwhelmed, struggling to make ends meet, and constantly distracted by technology. In this video-based online course (1 hour NCBTMB-approved CE), originally presented at the ABMP School Forum in 2023, we examine new strategies to end student survival thinking and improve the clarity of our own thinking processes. Our goal is to revitalize our thinking, our classrooms, and our schools. Once you register, you’ll have ongoing access to this course on your school or professional dashboard.
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When Students Don't Seem to Care
Most of us have experienced frustration when our students don’t seem to care about their coursework. It’s mind-boggling – even heartbreaking – that they signed up and paid tuition and now seem resistant and disinterested. In this session, I talk with psychotherapist Anthony Riske about student motivation. Anthony uses Motivational Interviewing as a lens through which to view and understand student resistance and ambivalence. He offers communication tools that help us engage students more effectively to guide them toward their broader goals and values.
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Student Guidelines for Online Communication
If your students use social media or online platforms for coursework, peer discussion, or projects, you’ll want to provide clear guidelines for engaging safely and professionally. We did a deep dive into best practices for guiding students and developed this handout. Download the handout, print it, and distribute it to students as it is, or use it as a model to develop your own guidelines. Don’t want to waste paper? Link your students to the digital guide.
Please Share Your Thoughts!
Are you looking for specific resources? What challenges do you face in your classroom? What resources would you find helpful? What feedback do you have for us on how we can support your efforts to develop the next generation of massage professionals? Your name, email, and comments are anonymous.
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1 Hour of NCBTMB-Approved CE (Free)
Unraveling the Mysteries of MBLEx Questions
Have you had this experience? Your graduates return from taking the MBLEx and report that they have never seen questions like those they encountered on the test. You get out all your MBLEx study guides and review the questions with your students. “No,” they say, “The questions weren’t like this.” What’s happening? Why is this experience widespread, and what can educators do about it? Together, we’ll sort out this mystery and craft multiple-choice questions based on thinking skills and levels of complexity. We’ll teach our students systematic methods to tackle daunting questions with confidence.
1 Hour of NCBTMB-Approved CE
Public Speaking Essentials for Instructors
Seasoned presenters make it look easy. They fluidly convey content with a smile, an offhand joke that makes everyone laugh, and an organized structure that has students nodding along in comprehension. But if we have no background in public speaking, standing up in front of classrooms and audiences is challenging. How do we build a skill set that allows us to deliver a presentation with ease and confidence? As you probably suspect, we must learn and practice new skills until they feel natural.
In this course, we’ll discuss the essentials of public speaking for instructors. Whether your aim is to engage students in your classroom, CE participants at a workshop, or colleagues at a massage conference, you’ll learn tips that build your confidence and stage presence.
