The games are designed to play multiple times, and each time you play you will answer questions faster and get higher scores. Faster response time means you are processing the information more effectively, and your mastery is increasing.
Some of the games can be frustrating initially. The Hangman game is a case in point. A seemingly simple game format, yet a powerful learning tool. Many people (including myself) have commented that when they first play this game they don’t know what’s going on. My advice: start typing. It is a fill in the blank game requiring exact answers. If you don’t know the answer, keep typing and eventually you’ll get there. When you play the game again you’ll be surprised how quickly you improve and remember the material.
The key point: practice by playing the games multiple times, your speed will increase, and in the process you will improve your comprehension and mastery.
Posted by Ed on Dec 22, 2010
Learning games are a key feature of the online training. I recommend you do the games while you’re reading the QBook. The idea is not to study for the “test” before you do the games; rather, the games are a primary way to study and practice. You can play them as many times as you need to in order to reach the criterion level score (70% to earn CEUs). In the process, you will meet the real objectives: enhance your comprehensive and mastery of the content so that you can improve your effectiveness with patients.
Open Game Windows while reading text in QBook. This takes a bit of finesse. As you get more skilled with the online system, you will easily manipulate the windows for sizing and placement: you can open a game for a specific QBook section and go back and forth between the game and the text.
Posted by Ed on Dec 19, 2010
Treatment is a learning process, for patients as well as for therapists. I put the Flexible CBT Approach in an online format for two reasons: 1) the technology requires your active involvement in the learning which leads to better comprehension, memory, and mastery of the material; and, 2) online delivery is scalable such that many clinicians have access to this training anytime, anywhere.
Let’s consider how the learning instruction technology enhances your learning. It starts with text like any book and it actually looks like a book on the screen. But it is not like any hard copy book. We refer to it as the QBook and it looks similar to an iPad e-book on your screen.
First is navigation: you can navigate easily from the table of contents, point an click to any chapter section and you’re there, and back again. You can bookmark pages, highlight sections, and make notes wherever you want. When reading the text you have many options to interact: you make choices to point and click-on pop-ups for graphics that illustrate concepts spatially or provide background material; click on a hot-link for a pdf that might be background information or a handout to give to your patients. Brief video instruction segments are embedded in the book. In various sections you read about something, see a graphic, and look at a video.
This is truly multi-modal learning as you must use different parts of your brain to process information, and in the end, learn more effectively.
Posted by Ed on Dec 19, 2010
The online program in Flexible CBT is organized into three modules.
Module 1: Fixed Values— the foundation of the approach. Fixed Values are the guiding posts of the Flexible CBT Approach that establish the foundation for clinical decision-making to optimize the matching of treatment interventions to a patient’s problems.
Module 2: Assessment and Establishing the Therapy Relationship: Learn the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis (CBA) to establish a sound treatment plan and case formulation, and equally important, how to start a productive therapeutic relationship.
Module 3: Skills Training and Psychoeducation: Learn principles and protocols to apply with your patients and help them improve functioning and enhance quality of life.
Tip: Fixed Values permeate all aspects of the Flexible CBT Approach. You can always connect an intervention or clinical decision back to one or more of the Fixed Values.
Tip for earning CEU: Concentrate on one module at a time and complete the games. Then move onto the next module.
Posted by Ed on Dec 14, 2010