Teaching Physiotherapy during the Initial Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: What Did We Learn?

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 resulted in a rapid shift to online learning for physiotherapy education in Australia and around the world. This Sydney-based qualitative study explored the reflections of physiotherapy educators and leaders involved in delivering physiotherapy programs with the aim of gaining insight into what happened to physiotherapy education during the initial stages of the pandemic and what lessons were learnt that will inform future physiotherapy education. Many pedagogical challenges were identified including the need to rapidly shift content online whilst still meeting competency requirements, how to effectively engage students, and the challenges of teaching and assessing practical psychomotor skills. The benefits of the rapid shift were the upskilling of educators, innovations in teaching and resources, and recognising that some aspects of physiotherapy education were improved by the change. Overall educators and leaders felt time was needed to effectively design physiotherapy content to fit different delivery modes and it was important some aspects of physiotherapy education should continue to be taught in-person. Future physiotherapy education is likely to be a combination of in-person and online delivery and lessons learnt from this time need to be incorporated into physiotherapy programs to achieve the best educational outcomes.