The 2012 REACHE Conference

GIFTS: Great Ideas For Teaching Stuff

What gifts do you bring to your teaching? Are you looking for some new ideas for teaching hard to grasp concepts like trust and collaboration? Do you want to find a new way to teach people to think?

In this session you will:

Experience concrete ways to illustrate conceptual ideas so that everyone “gets it”.

Learn ideas and methods to teach difficult concepts your learners need.

Discover a new way to hone critical thinking skills.

Michele Deck, RN, BSN, M.Ed, LCCE, FACCE Michele is known for her innovative teaching methods in the field of health care education and training, and has authored thirteen books. She is editor of the Nursing Professional Development: Stories, Tips and Tools section of the Journal of Nurses in Staff Development, has been on the editorial board of JNSD for the past 9 years. She is a Board member of Lamaze International and the current President Elect.

Embodied Teacher; Embodied Learner

Embodied knowledge comes from within--from our images, emotions,and physical sensations. Our embodied knowledge is more complete, immediate, and expressive, than all the objective knowledge we can acquire about our body. Education is an ecosystem; to the degree a childbirth teacher is sourcing from her embodied knowledge, will she be able to activate embodied learning in the parents she teaches? This talk will introduce a variety of embodied teaching/learning processes for the classroom, appointments, and labor.

Pamela England, MA, CNM, the force behind Birthing from Within, demonstrates how the body learns and what our clients and patients must do to connect the mind and body to increase their satisfaction and awareness of their birth and postpartum experience.

Pam has been a nurse/midwife for 20 years and is the founder of the Art of Birthing Center. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Gorilla in the Room- Birth, Politics and Childbirth Education

There is nothing more political then birth, yet, as educators, we rarely help parents prepare for the impact it can have on the birth they choose for themselves. We'll deconstruct power structures within birthing environments and examine how politics play into what choices parents actually have, how educators can facilitate this conversation in their classrooms, at the kitchen table and at the bedside.

Sheri Deveney, LCCE, CD(DONA), DONA-Approved birth doula trainer,

Sheri is keenly interested in the politics of childbirth and how the roles of doulas and educators need to evolve to function well within medicalized systems. She has been traveling Western Canada and the United States for three years facilitating a discussion on this topic with doula communities and now looks forward to evolving the conversation to include childbirth education. She is a DONA certified doula, birth doula trainer, LCCE, and a breastfeeding educator.