Becoming a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN)

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I once walked in the shoes of a first-year student preparing for a life in the health field.  I presumed if I attended lectures and completed assignments and readings, I would have all the knowledge I needed to become a registered dietitian.  After all, my studies were intended to make me an expert in nutrition.  What took me some time to realize is that expertise has three criteria (Wlodkowski & Ginsberg, 2017)(Moore, Jackson & Tschennan-Moran, 2016). 

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1)  You know your subject well

2)  You know how to make your knowledge or skills beneficial to adult learners

3)  You have the ability to construct knowledge with adults through effective instructional design and coaching  

As it turns out, the learning journey had just begun.   

 

Discovering Health Coaching

 

Next, I tried on the shoes of a new registered dietitian who was excited to have a couple of years of experience under her belt.  My confidence was improving, and so was my depth of nutrition-related knowledge.  Yet, not all (frankly, not many) of my clients changed their behavior, nor did they accomplish their goals.  I had to ask myself, what's missing?  That's when I met my mentor, Leslie Thompson, RN.  She worked magic when it came to helping people make lifestyle changes.  I soon learned it wasn't magic, but rather, she was a skilled health coach.  While I did not know it at the time, she demonstrated what could be accomplished when motivational strategies (grounded in behavior change and adult learning theories) were woven into health education.  The information became beneficial to the adult learner. 

 

I was still the expert in nutrition, but recognizing adults as the expert in their own life was a transformational point for me as a dietitian.  My expertise only had relevance when it was incorporated into the adult learners' experiences, beliefs, circumstances and values.  These aspects of the adult learner are known as attitudes, which significantly affect behavior and learning.  Attitude helps people make sense of their world.  Challenging this place of comfort is not likely to be well received, without established relevance, volition, empathy, enthusiasm, and self-efficacy (Wlodkowski & Ginsberg, 2017).  It became clear, learning was a partnership between the educator and the learner.

 

Becoming an Adult Educator 

 

My next pair of shoes led me from one-on-one nutrition education to nonformal community education.  It was the first time I really saw myself as a teacher.  In recognizing this new identity, I also because aware of the fact that I had no formal training on how to teach.  True to the self-directed nature of the adult learner, I had identified a need for a learning event with the purpose of developing a skill (Merriam & Baumgartner, 2020).  The third piece of the puzzle, or skillset for health educators, had just revealed itself.  I needed to learn how to construct knowledge through effective instructional design.  This leads to the present, the finale of my formal Adult Education Training - for now.   

 

Always a Lifelong Learner 

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Expect the content on this site to always be a work in progress.  It is a reflection of my personal value for growth, demonstrated through lifelong learning.  The content and resources in this portfolio are those I have found, from experience, to be of the greatest value in helping others achieve their personal health goals.