Conflict Happens: Teaching DPT Students to Think and Engage in Constructive Debate
Purpose: We began thinking about how to best integrate concepts of conflict management and productive debate into a Professional Development course in our curriculum after recognizing that such a concept was not addressed. Physical therapists tend to avoid conflict and have not typically used any form of debate as a means to challenge the ideas of colleagues or to further the profession, despite the use of this method of professional advancement in medicine and other healthcare professions. If active engagement and the ability to challenge the status quo is expected to be part of a physical therapist's professional responsibility, then we must help foster the development of these skills in our DPT students. This session will offer a description of how topics of conflict and debate can be included in a DPT curriculum, including how to involve the students in active learning at multiple time points.Methods and/or Description of Project: After recognizing a gap in our curriculum, we determined the appropriate course for the content and then proceeded to develop two class sessions to address conflict management and debate. We outlined the objectives for these topics and discussed strategies for engaging students to enhance learning. We decided to build our discussions of conflict and debate surrounding the ideas of two program alumni who have been vocal with their disagreement of the APTA's interest in recognizing PTs as experts in the movement system. This was a controversial move considering our DPT program is invested in using the movement system as a foundational component of teaching and learning in the early part of the curriculum. The first class session was an introduction to conflict management and debate. The students were then asked to complete an assignment that served as preparation for the second class session the following day. The second class session was led by the two community clinicians, who are also alumni of the program and have been engaged themselves in social media platforms that use debate to share controversial positions within the physical therapy profession. They began with identifying key concepts related to conflict such as Graham's hierarchy of disagreement, cognitive dissonance, and sunk cost fallacies. They then asked the students to answer the question of: "Are physical therapists experts in the movement system?" and whether or not the APTA definition of movement system is appropriate. The remainder of the session was spent debating the definition of "expert", "movement system", "If physical therapists aren't the experts than who is?", "Is it appropriate for the APTA to define the movement system internally or should we be asking for help from other professionals?", "Why is professional identity important?", and "Why is the precision of language and understanding of the other person's perspective valuable?". These questions were highly controversial for the students who had been involved for 2 years in a DPT curriculum that is heavily influenced by use of the movement system as a primary foundation for patient observation, examination and intervention.Results/Outcomes: The outcome of the sessions has been captured in the comments of students both verbally during/after class as well as a survey that was conducted shortly after these class sessions. This survey addressed questions ranging from "What did you learn about yourself from the debate?" to "Do you feel more prepared to engage in challenging conversations with colleagues in the future?". The general consensus from the students was that "it really forced them to think differently". Utilizing the comments from the students, the impressions from our guest debaters, and the assessment of the course instructors, future class sessions are being modified to build upon this unique concept of teaching our students how to engage skillfully and thoughtfully in debate.Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme: Our Leadership Landscape: Perspectives from the Ground Level to 30,000 Feet: Being open to opinions and differences alone doesn't cause change, and in an ever-changing healthcare environment, it is essential that physical therapists exemplify the type of professionals who do not fall stagnant and continue with the status quo. To push forward with the most innovative teaching concepts, we must dare to push our students to think differently. We cannot create an echochamber at ground level and expect students/graduates to push to heights of 30,000 feet without being prepared to manage conflict and engage in debate. We must encourage our students to find people different from themselves, be prepared to face challenge and change their minds, and seek disconfirmation in order to be absolutely sure that something they believe is "right".References: 1) M Dues. The Art of Conflict Management: Achieving Solutions for Life, Work, and Beyond. The Great Courses. The Teaching Company. 2010. 2) Dare to Disagree. https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree?utm_source=email&source=email&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ios-share. TEDGlobal 2012. Accessed March 2018. 3) Vision Statement for the Physical Therapy Profession and Guiding Principles to Achieve the Vision. http://www.apta.org/Vision/. Revised and accessed March 2018. 4) Movement System. http://www.apta.org/MovementSystem/. Accessed March 2018. 5) Agree to Disagree the Less Wrong Way. https://ptthinktank.com/2013/11/05/agree-to-disagree-the-less-wrong-way/. Published November 2013. Accessed March 2018. 6) Precision in Language. https://ptthinktank.com/2014/05/07/precision-in-language/. Published May 2014. Accessed March 2018. 7) The Lack of Meaning in “The Movement System”. https://forwardthinkingpt.com/2014/03/10/the-lack-of-meaning-in-the-movement-system/. Published March 2014. Accessed March 2018. 8) What Problem Does The Human Movement System Solve? https://ptthinktank.com/2016/02/28/what-problem-does-the-human-movement-system-solve/. Published February 2016. Accessed March 2018.Course Objectives: 1) Describe integration of topics of conflict and debate in a DPT curriculum 2) Discuss a process of active and engaged student learning through the practice of debate in a safe environment 3) Share student outcomes regarding the dissonance of addressing a controversial topic within the classroom 4) Dialogue about fostering conflict management and debate skills of DPT students in the futureInstructional Methods: This session will include lecture around the topic of conflict management and debate and how one program chose to address this in our DPT curriculum and professional development course. The session will also include demonstration of the debate techniques with audience participation and share examples of how to integrate this activity into a course. Course participants will also engage in discussion and dialogue around suggested debate topics and platforms. Finally, there will question and answer opportunities.Tentative Outline/Schedule: Background (10 minutes) -Importance of conflict management and debate within our general society -Why our DPT students should learn and practice these skills -Description of how topics of conflict and debate can be included in a DPT curriculum Development and Implementation of the 2-course sessions (30 minutes) -Course objectives for the topics of conflict management and debate -Strategies for engaging students to enhance learning -What topic to debate and why? Who to debate and why? -Description of each class session and assignment associated with debate preparation Outcomes (10 minutes) -Student subjective response immediately during and after the 2 sessions -Student survey responses Relevance to Conference theme (15 minutes) -To push forward with the most innovative teaching concepts -Must dare to push our students to think differently -Example of setting up debate on controversial topics within the PT profession Next Steps and future goals (10 minutes) -Revision/changes to future class sessions Discussion, Collaboration, Q&A (20 minutes)