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What occurs when a Ph.D. with a ardour for conduct change, a knack for curriculum design, and a present for connection leads your well being coach coaching? You get Dr. Shana Walsh—AFPA’s Director of Education and Curriculum, and the chief of our Master Certified Health and Wellness Coach program.
With a Ph.D. in Kinesiology, Exercise Nutrition, and Health Promotion, in addition to credentials as a National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coach, Master Certified Health Education Specialist, and Certified Personal Trainer, Dr. Walsh brings a long time of expertise to each course she touches. From shaping what you study behind the scenes to guiding reside Zoom periods with vitality and empathy, she’s each the architect and advocate on your teaching journey.
In this interview, Shana shares her strategy to constructing student-centered packages, what makes AFPA’s reside cohort expertise so distinctive, and some enjoyable info, just like the time she did a pull-up whereas hula-hooping.
The Secrets Behind AFPA’s Curriculum
As AFPA’s Education & Curriculum Director, how do you form the coed studying expertise?
My function encompasses the whole course growth lifecycle. This ranges from the strategy planning stage, the place we strategize new course choices and matters that align with scholar wants, to creating written and video studying supplies, and securing top-tier instructors which are consultants of their respective areas. I’m additionally concerned in aiding present college students all through their AFPA studying journey. In each stage, I prioritize the standard of the schooling we offer, making certain probably the most precious and relevant content material for our college students. It’s extraordinarily rewarding to see one thing go from an concept scribbled on a notepad in pencil to a certification college students can earn to alter the trajectory of their profession and their lives.
What’s one thing most individuals won’t understand about how AFPA develops its curriculum?
Most individuals won’t understand that we all the time begin by asking, ‘What’s finest for the coed?’ The reply to that single query drives each resolution we make, from the matters we educate, the educating strategies we make use of, the instructors we choose, and even the little particulars, just like the on-screen colours in our programs (nay for orange, yay for blue).
Beyond course growth, what typically goes unseen is how a lot we rejoice alongside our college students. When they earn their certificates and discover success within the subject, we’re completely ecstatic. After all, that’s our final aim: to supply the schooling they should really propel them into the skilled roles they search.
How do you guarantee AFPA’s packages keep present with analysis, developments, and finest practices?
In the well being business, new analysis is consistently rising, offering new info and redefining finest practices. At AFPA, we perceive that offering our college students with outdated info is solely not an possibility, so we take a proactive strategy as a substitute. We make it part of our routine to watch the newest problems with main tutorial and business journals, attend business conferences, tune into webinars, and community with different skilled organizations and consultants within the subject. We’ve even been identified to edit a reside course to tweak a truth or two primarily based on newly gleaned data. We do that to ensure that when our college students graduate, they’ve probably the most present info doable to excel of their careers.
What do you see as a number of the Most worthy expertise college students achieve from AFPA packages?
Some of probably the most precious expertise college students achieve from AFPA packages embrace:
- Comprehensive Knowledge: Every single one among our programs supplies a wealth of information on the subject of examine. For college students actually searching for to achieve experience in a particular space, AFPA is the last word useful resource.
- Holistic Perspectives: At AFPA, we deeply perceive how intertwined all areas of well being are. For that motive, we infuse holistic views into every thing we educate, supporting our college students to see the larger image.
- Practical Application and Coaching Skills: It’s one factor to know what to do, but it surely’s one other to have the ability to do it successfully. We don’t simply educate the abilities, we additionally present ample apply alternatives to use them to actual world eventualities.
- Professional Confidence and Career Readiness: Our packages are designed to construct college students’ confidence of their talents, making ready them to excel on their chosen profession journey.
What makes the reside cohort expertise particular at AFPA?
The Advanced Health Coaching Intensive is the dynamic, reside element of our Certified Master Health and Wellness Coach program, and it’s AFPA’s solely reside course. In a single Zoom room, we unite individuals from throughout the nation and across the globe. While all of us come from vastly totally different walks of life, we share a profound commonality: a deep want to empower others to turn out to be the very best model of themselves. There’s magic in bringing collectively adults of all ages, with their numerous backgrounds and wealthy life experiences, watching them study and develop collectively. It’s really transformative.
Learn How to Set Yourself Apart as a Board-Certified Health Coach
Getting to Know Dr. Walsh Outside the Classroom
What are a couple of quirky or shocking issues about you that your college students won’t know?
I’ve efficiently accomplished one pull up whereas hula-hooping.
Also, I’ve scored within the 99th percentile for extroversion on a number of persona assessments. When I used to be in first grade, my trainer moved my seat for speaking so many occasions, I ended up sitting subsequent to each single child in school.
I didn’t study to trip a motorcycle till I used to be an grownup, as a result of as a child I wished to focus all my vitality on rollerblading.
When you’re not engaged on curriculum, educating, or teaching, how do you recharge?
As a quintessential extrovert, I recharge by spending time with others. Whether it’s from good dialog with my neighbors sitting across the firepit, some pleasant competitors in rec pickleball, or absorbing high quality time at residence with my household, the vitality I get from social connectedness fills my cup.
If you needed to sum up your philosophy on conduct change in a single sentence, what wouldn’t it be?
If you alter your well being, you alter your life.
Her Advice for Aspiring Coaches
What recommendation would you give to somebody who’s on the fence about becoming a member of the subsequent reside well being teaching session?
If you’re on the fence about becoming a member of the subsequent reside course, remind your self that this is among the most effective and inexpensive methods to turn out to be a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach. As an NBHWC-Approved program, AFPA gives a direct and supportive path to board certification with out pointless delays or bills.
If your aim is to supply a significant service to others by means of the facility of well being and wellness teaching, whereas incomes a residing doing work that makes a distinction, that is your alternative. You’ll achieve the abilities to assist individuals make actual, lasting modifications of their lives—and be compensated for the worth you present. Health and wellness teaching remains to be an rising subject, which suggests there’s room to develop, contribute, and set up your self in an rising career.
At the identical time, this isn’t nearly your shoppers—it’s a transformative expertise for you, too. Through this coaching, you’ll deepen your individual self-awareness, develop important teaching expertise, and construct the arrogance wanted to not solely go the board examination however to really be an awesome coach.
If that sounds just like the sort of profession and private development you’ve been on the lookout for, cease hesitating and enroll right now!
📆 The subsequent AFPA reside well being teaching session begins quickly.
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