Teaching Skills for Psychoeducation

Abstract

AbstractTo be effective psychoeducators, human service professionals must be effective teachers. Herein lies one of the paradoxes of psychoeducation: the teacher may have a depth of knowledge about a relevant topic but be unable to effectively convey that knowledge to others. It appears to be assumed in the psychoeducation literature that having knowledge qualifies one to dispense it, but this assumption is not necessarily true. Any college student will attest that some of his or her worst teachers were the professors, and some of his or her best teachers were the graduate students in training. For this reason it is important to review some essential components of effective teaching. Formal training in psychoeducation seems to be somewhat limited, as few programs offer course work in its foundations, principles, and theories. The purpose of this chapter is to introduce relevant topics related to effective teaching. There are entire textbooks devoted to each of these points, of course, so this review is brief.