The Origins of the Fiteracy Workshops

 The Fiteracy workshops were created using evidence based research to create a " learning framework " for teaching health concepts.

Dr Brian Cambourne created the " Cambourne's Conditions of Learning" over a 40 year period  and created an ecologically valid and educationally relevant theory of literacy learning.

His daughter, Brodie, who learned to read as a child using this framework, was able to see the strong connection between " the ability to read or understand health literature" and the often poor health outcomes in areas.

The Fiteracy Framework was created using the  " 8 Conditions of Learning" created by Dr Cambourne and the same learning environments  are now used in Fiteracy programs and health programs to assist people wishing to learn health concepts.
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Dr. Brian Cambourne, Associate Professor

Since 1980 Brian Cambourne has been researching how learning, especially literacy learning occurs. He has conducted this research in the naturalistic mode he prefers by sitting in classrooms for many hundreds of hours. Cambourne argues that teachers who are dissatisfied and/or frustrated with the methods they use to teach literacy are prisoners of a view of learning which is based on quite invalid assumptions and which seriously complicates the process of learning to read and write.  He argues for an alternate view of learning and an approach to teaching literacy which uncomplicates the process of learning and makes literacy more accessible to more students, especially non-mainstream students. Furthermore, his data show that this approach to learning leads to the development of highly literate, critically aware, confident readers and writers, who continue to read and write long after they have left school. He has a strong prejudice that literacy is a cultural resource which enables the less privileged members of any culture to challenge those potentially elitist groups who seek to keep economic and political power for themselves. He  also believes that we can only have better, fairer, and kinder societies if  highly productive, critical literacy is made accessible to as many members of a culture as possible.

Brodie Cambourne MSc (Hons) BSc

Brodie Cambourne is an Accredited Exercise Physiologist and has been working in the area of the brain and exercise since 1996.

Brodie has been using her father's " conditions of learning" in all the health programs she has worked in for the past 20 years.

She now runs her own practice called BrainFit Exercise Physiology in Nowra NSW.
The unique component of BrainFit programs is that BrainFit programs use the Fiteracy Framework to to provide low anxiety learning environments for participants.
Reducing anxiety during initial consults increases engagement in health information with BrainFit participants being encouraged to participate in the development of their own health plan and reduction in clinical tests during an initial consult.
Brodie is passionate about providing participants with the latest evidence based guidelines on the most appropriate fuels for exercising and works in the areas pre-diabetes, weight management and exercise program development for people who have chronic injuries.

She has also developed and applied the Fiteracy teaching method to develop exercise programs for people experiencing PTSD, depression, anxiety and social isolation.

Additional Interests
Brodie also has an interest in educating health workers about recognising the signs and symptoms of Compassion Fatigue so as to help our frontline workers in the health system maintain their own health also.

Brodie is an Accredited Stand Up Paddle Board Instructor and has competed numerous courses on back care, posture and exercise for improved lung function.

Brodie is an endurance paddler and has competed in an won the open women's events in many of Australia's ultramarathon paddling events and contributes these wins to understanding the role of nutrition and fat adaption for human performance.