Students in PT 8352: Teaching in Physical Therapy taught by Dr. Erin Wentzell complete a variety of service projects that help community members learn how to live healthy lives and adapt to their unique needs.
For information about Community Engaged Scholarship at GW: https://go.gwu.edu/cesc
Semester Reports
Spring 2024
Projects:
Projects in this course vary, but all focus on providing valuable educational resources and support to community members with specific health needs.
HSC Kids In Action: Yoga program at Children's National Medical Center. Students assisted with setting up and cleaning up yoga sessions, led yoga activities, helped with check-ins, and provided one-on-one engagement with children who needed direct supervision.
Personalized home exercise program. Students worked directly with a community member, researching and developing exercises tailored to the individual's complex needs, helping them readjust to community life.
Personalized health goals for community members. Students conducted interviews with local community members, gathered information, and created resources including exercise routines and nutritional recipes specific to the individual's health objectives and condition.
Student Comments:
"It was amazing to learn how to create a Home Exercise Program (HEP) for a more complex individual and help her readjust to her community."
"I learned how to apply motivational interviewing in a clinical setting."
"It was a great opportunity to work on my interview skills, be able to take in and process information from a real person, not a student reading a case, and then come up with a way to share high level information in a way that can be patient friendly."
"I got to learn more about my community and become connected with our community partner."
"I learned that you need to be adaptable to every child's specific needs because they have varying learning abilities."
