CMBE Spotlight: An Interview with Jodi Wiley about Massage Therapy Instructor Certification
AFMTE Interim President Shari Aldrich recently had the chance to ask Jodi Wiley a few questions about AFMTE Educator Certification! Watch below!
00:03 hi there. This is Shari and i’m the acting president of the alliance for massage therapy education and today i’m here to talk with Jodi Wiley a massage therapist in Michigan who recently went through our teacher certification program and i just kind of wanted to talk with her and get her feedback on the program benefits of going through certification and anything else any gems that she wants to share with us so Jodi welcome and i’m so excited to talk with you today
00:30 hi Shari it’s good to virtually meet you
00:33 yeah you too
00:34 hey can you give us a little of your background uh kind of your experience into teaching
00:40 Sure I have been a massage therapist for well roughly 15 years and then i’ve been teaching since 2012 so eight and a half years or so i teach that entire time i’ve taught at a community college which is where you see me now and as you said i’m in michigan
01:00 it’s a beautiful setup right there behind you
01:02 it really is i feel lucky to have um the support of an entire college
1:06 yeah i’m kind of curious when you got started in teaching back in 2012 did you have any training for becoming an instructor
01:15 not specifically in massage teaching i had had some experience in teaching pe physical education in a catholic school setting and you know just random teaching experiences
01:31 yeah what i find like for me when i got into teaching it was almost the you’re up next attitude teacher in front of me left and i was only a graduate uh three months out of school
01:43oh three months
01:45 yeah and i started assistant instructing and within six months after graduation i was a lead instructor so and i think that’s kind of a common journey for a lot of massage
01:55 i think you’re probably right yeah
01:57 so got into teaching in 2012 and then uh this year well 2020 you started going through the teacher certification program with the alliance what kind of led you uh to wanting to choose to get certified
02:12 well since the uh certification came out it’s always been in the back of my head like that’s sort of something i’d like to do and i kind of just got up the courage to do it in the end of 2020.
02:25 okay and then what was your experience like working with the the alliance team
02:30 so the online interface that you use to go through the various check marks the requirements for certification was0 really easy to use also i appreciated the videos tutorials that kind of walked you through i sort of picked and choose which parts i needed help with but truly it was very easy to follow the instructions
03:00 okay and so then kind of going back to that the certification making that decision was it something that the community college asks you to do or is it something that just inside of you you just felt this would help you maybe help your students um if you were certified
03:17 so it was not something that the college asked although i would be a proponent of encouraging all of our teachers to do that at the college i was self-motivated because i think as we talked before i feel like addressing our profession from i i’ll say from the bottom up from the educational entry level i think that’s really the biggest way to make an impact on the profession and if we can start with teachers being you know evidence informed and just getting a handle on where our needs are at as a teacher and that’s another thing going through that process of becoming certified i was kind of made aware of where my maybe weaknesses are as a teacher
04:10 how interesting can you share one with us that kind of stood out as being a weakness
04:15 sure i well you know our program is hands-on obviously um we had to alter that a little bit during the pandemic we had to alter that a lot honestly yes but the and i have a background in some kinesiology education and so i was really good at teaching the hands-on part i felt like where i lacked was perhaps the lecture par when i’m delivering theory to the students and realizing how to make it a little bit ore interactive was something i came away with
04:46 oh that’s fantastic i know when i created a a ce or sorry massage therapy instructor ce course just developing it i learned tools myself that really have altered the lectures that i give as well so i can see how beneficial that would be nice
05:06 yeah and again we kind of i think tend to model ourselves after instructors that we’ve had in the past and if those instructors did not have uh you know a strong you know teaching sense but also a really good educational delivery system we model after what we you know what we witnessed when we were going through the program
05:26 yeah just likely in a hands-on program just like kids and parents you know you model what you see yeah
05:32 it’s funny that you mention mentors because one of my not mentors necessarily because there’s no official relationship but someone that i have looked up to as a massage instructor on a national level he said that knowledge is out there really for free because of the internet so if you want to improve yourself as a teacher there’s a million resources but what i think the counterpart to that is the accountability so i could work out for free because there’s lots of youtube videos ight on working out but when you enter a program then there’s some more accountability and you’re more likely to finish it or you know and coming back to the teacher example if you enter a program like the certification you’re more likely to follow through with self-improvement than if you just say oh yeah all information’s all out there
06:28 it’s true i think anytime you have to put down money for something it does change even though it’s it’s not an exorbitant amount of money but when you put down money for something it changes the outcome like you talked about fitness and watching youtube videos so true when you went i’m just curious when you went through the program were you teaching a class when you went through the certification
06:52 yeah i think so
06:54 okay and so if we if we think about you you were teaching a class and you talked about how your educational delivery was changing and metamorphosing as you were going through it did your students notice a change
07:07 oh i don’t know the answer to that i’d have to go back and compare pre and post student evals to see i hope that they would notice a change
07:17 yeah okay and how about other instructors are they are they asking you about the process that you’re you know other instructors at your college
07:26 well so since i have gotten my official certification we haven’t had a staff meeting but that’s on the agenda for the next staff meeting is to just share about that process and encourage other teachers to go through it
07:39 yeah i can i mean i own my school and so you know encouraging my instructors to get certified is something that i think will you know kind of give our school a competitive advantage over other schools that uh you know are kind of i don’t like the word competitor because i think we’re all in it together to help the profession elevate and it just gives better outcomes to students across the country but it does give me a competitive advantage in the meantime while still encouraging other schools to get their educators certified as well so how do you think that this will shape your teaching future
08:18 i think in two main arenas one is the micro environment of my school and my students and my teaching i think i’ll be i will see myself as being held to a higher standard even those are those are self-imposed but just having that certification i’m going to be thinking about that yeah and then on the macro level i think we also talked before about being accountable to our profession so i would love it if a teacher certification were not the exception but the average because i feel like i’m i mean i hope i’m a good teacher but i’m not a teacher of the year i’m just an average person i don’t maybe people think that they have to be super teacher to get certification and that’s just not true you just have to be intentional
09:21 yeah i couldn’t agree more i really couldn’t agree more let’s see so i’m just gonna hazard a guess how you would recommend this program to other instructors yep thank you and then lastly i think i understand that you’re on one of the Alliance committees
09:42 i am that’s kind of new too yeah so the teacher resource committee
09:44 yeah yeah so how long have you been on the committee
09:48 just a couple months i’m just sort of checking it out and i hope that i’m helpful but 09:56 yeah i’m sure you are especially coming in with the experience having gone through the certification i’m sure there’s tremendous value to the others on the board are on the committee and speaking from experience of having gone through the program i’m sure there’s tremendous value yeah so jodi is there anything else that you want to add before we close this up for the day
10:21 well i think we talked about everything
10:23 all right well i thank you so much for your time i appreciate the kind words that you said about the certification program and to those of you that might be looking at this video watching it and trying to decide if certification is right for you please reach out to the alliance or to Jodi herself we can put you in contact with her i’m sure if you have any specific questions on the process we’d love to help you and help your school help you as an instructor and just elevate the profession thank you so much
10:54 thanks
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