HLST 320 Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals Assignment 1 (Development of My Teaching Learning Philosophy) Athabasca University
Teaching and Learning Philosophy
Development of my Teaching-Learning Philosophy
My role as a community paramedic is to visit patients who are diagnosed with one or
more of the three major disease processes: diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease and/or heart failure. The patients are referred to our program by their family doctors and
it is my job to visit these patients in their homes. I work with them to make lifestyle changes and
improve their quality of life while living with their illness, and to prevent repeated trips to the
emergency department. The majority of the work that I do with these patients is through health
teaching and education. The purpose of this paper is to discuss my personal learning style and
professional teaching philosophy, and how they apply to my health teachings for my patients.
Personal Learning Style
Using two different online self-assessments (Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance
Agency, 2020) (Bentley University, 2020), it was determined that I am a visual and sometimes
tactile learner. I was not the least bit surprised with these results as I almost always forget things
the first time I hear them, so I usually write things down. I struggle with lectures as my mind
wanders and I struggle to take accurate notes. I much prefer if the lectures are recorded so I can
listen to them again and again or if the lecture notes are provided so I can read them before the
lecture and I understand what is being talked about beforehand. If I am learning applied skills
for my field, I prefer to watch a demonstration and then practice the skill until I can do it
efficiently; I may also watch the demonstration over and over again until I can memorize
everything that was done before attempting it myself. One of the things that I learned over time
is that I cannot rush my learning. I require plenty of time to process and to repeatedly review the
information before I can make sense of the information.