Learning Arches in practice: RMIT Osteopathy L&T Leadership

 
Constantin Brâncuși's Mademoiselle Pogany I

Simplicity is complexity resolved.
- Sculptor, Brâncuși
As simple as possible, but never simpler.
- Composer, Roger Sessions (paraphrasing Einstein)

For me, these two quotes hold the spirit and objective of Learning Arch design.  With this spirit in mind, in early December 2025 I designed a workshop to strengthen the Osteopathy team's Learning and Teaching culture and practice.  
 

The Osteopathy L&T Leadership Workshop Context

The workshop's background is my the collaboration with Kylie Spencer.  We've been brainstorming a programmatic approach to the RMIT Osteopathy program. It also coincides with important College strategies around Universal Design for Learning.

The hidden workshop objective was to kick-start conversations on how Learning & Teaching (L&T) is a natural and necessary extension of Osteopathy professional identity and practice. In this 'What's-in-it-for-me' way, it makes the workshop personally meaningful — and not just another task or distraction.




The design of the workshop was to keep it authentic, active, applied and aligned with the goals. Loosely based on Kolb's Applied Theory of Experiential Learning, activities were crafted to allow participants to experience and feel the task and issues before the learning theory was brought in. It was deliberately light on terms and definitions, and heavy on pragmatic experience.

Activity 1: Signals of Osteopathic Professionalism

You are in a foreign city and you are having back and neck pain. You think to yourself: I have to find an Osteo. Unfortunately you don’t speak the language and you’re out of typical business hours.

How do you reassure yourself that you’re entrusting your body and health to professional hands???

In a 2-4-All activity method, one person interviewed another defining the outward signals of Osteopathic Professionalism. Reflection was used to land the learning with the participants; they saw how the 'signals of Osteopathic professionalism' were directly analogous to good Osteopathic L&T practice; both contributing to achieving the same client health outcome goals but in different ways.

By deliberating and proactively driving innovation in Osteopathic L&T practice, they are  elevating their professional practice and identity to new, advanced levels.

With L&T principles framed as consistent with professional identity, the group were ready for pragmatic L&T tools: UDL and Programmatic Criteria-led design.

Activity 2: The why of inclusive learning experiences

In this activity, started with an spectacular example of bad acting, I left the room for a minute while my co-presenter Kylie Spencer was declaring break time. I came back in declaring lunch was ruined saying that we only have meat pies and quiches left: was that going to be an issue??? It was — dietary, religious, allergy issues were raised. 

UDL is common sense and known as an important thing to do. However, what's missing is the personal meaning of it. By using food catering needs as an analogy, it triggered personal and sometimes emotional discussion. Dietary needs were diverse as were the reasons. After quickly admitting to the ruse/farce, the student-centered meaning behind the UDL Framework was brought home to each participant.

Activity 3: Programmatic Design for Groupwork

This next activity challenged participants to think differently about student groupwork and how it can be scaffolded along Career Development for Learning lines. The participants were divided into three pairs.  Each pair was to unpack the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values of the three types of group work:
Kylie had established a Programmatic Criteria utilising the Core Skills for Work framework.  The participants mapped their groupwork characteristics across these Programmatic Criteria. The landing of this activity came with each pair presenting their analysis to each other. As each pair presented, the others were dynamically updating their own analyses. A shared, deep understanding of student groupwork quickly emerged.
 
While not a complete programmatic design, the academics deeply engaged in that holistic program design process.  By being hands-on, using a real learning example, they saw the nature of thinking required.


 

Conclusion

The workshop approach was daring - to take a dive into a very personal space by co-constructing what L&T professionalism is before jumping into the bread-and-butter L&T activities. Kudos and thank you to Kylie for allowing me to take that risk and assisting in ensuring it was done respectfully.  Kudos and thank you to the workshop participants for their engagement and participation in that process.
 
In closing the workshop, participants reflect on each of the day's activity. A consensus emerged on the importance of the participants Osteopathy L&T practice in their students' professional careers; that a strong community of practice has been ignited.  That Learning Arches has given me a framework to be more ambitious what L&T training can be, striving to achieve deeper learning,

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