Background:
I teach on a 3rd year occupational therapy course at the University of Cape Town titled 'Occupational Therapy in Physical Health conditions'. There are 3 other lecturers who teach on this course and there are 48 students registered. Students vary in their learning styles and capabilities. Teaching occurs through lecture, tutorials, practicals and practice learning. Students are required to prepare for lectures by completing readings and/or tasks prepared by the lecturer concerned. The learning management system (LMS) for the course is used mainly to communicate with students (posting messages) and to post resources such as notes, Powper Point presentations or articles. Students have Wednesday afternoons free for self-directed learning. During practice learning blocks (these are periods during which students are placed with a qualified occupational therapist) students are expected to work with patients in different settings (hospitals, community health centres or rehabilitation facilities) in order to learn how to apply their knowledge and skills in practice.
Intended outcome(s):
To introduce appropriate technologies in the existing LMS that will support and advance learning and clinical reasoning during practice learning.
Challenges:
There are currently no technologies in place to support and facilitate the development of clinical reasoning during 3rd year physical health practice learning. Clinical reasoning is a critical aspect of students' process of becoming competent occupational therapist which is currently fostered through one-on-one discussion with clinical supervisors and/or occupational therapy clinicians. It is therefore interesting that we have not explored the possibilities of using technology/ies to create additional opportunities for this. These may also be less time-intensive, less threatening and more fun than individual supervision sessions.
Hi! Sorry about the difficulties with the chat! I was wondering if you could maybe do your reflections in the LMS, in the discussion tool? I did that once with students. Every student created a discussion and had to comment on two other discussions. That way you can grade them, using an on-line rubric and track students easily. I like the idea of the videos as well. Ethics an issue though… Would like to hear more about your survey!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing on Adobe today Helen. I think we are starting to get the full picture of your students' needs and context.
ReplyDeleteI think it will be important (especially for us non-medical/health people) to unpack the idea around clinical reasoning as therein might lie the key to where technology can assist.
I agree that there could be a tool (like discussions) in Vula, that could be used (i.e. has a specific affordance) to promote your outcome(s). I think Hanlie's idea of discussions might also be solid - if one couples it with input from the students and then a process of peer-feedback.
I realise now that videos might be problematic, but what about audio recordings (students can do it on their cell phones) that gets uploaded in the discussion forum, and the student can (accordng to your rubric for excellence) rate/ comment on their own, as well as on two other students' recordings - of course with the view of promoting clinical reasoning.
Let's keep the "balls" in the air for a little while longer to see if anything else rises up from your explorations coming.
Good luck - looking forward to how your case will progress.
Unfortunately I missed your presentation on Adobe - better luck next time. I checked and it was something to do with my UWC computer, next time I will make sure that I bring my laptop!
ReplyDeleteI have recently have had some chats with teachers dealing with how to present clinical reasoning to their students and the most daunting challenge in this context was how to identify a simple and authentic task from which the students can be assisted in drawing out the necessary skills.
The problem is that in the real context, the problems are quite varied.
However, extending what JP has suggested bout using the discussion forum, you could also create a case based scenario, perhaps based on the model we are using in this course a simple version of the model suggested by Levett – Jones and Hoffman, see
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/Resources/Projects/Nursing%20and%20Midwifery%20Projects/Clinical%20Reasoning/Symposium-Workshop-2C.pdf
Here you could use visuals (if ethical) to zoom in into those points you want your students to identify, analyse, explain etc.
Then you could ask you students to role play by giving accounts of how they would deal with the case presented (using video recordings) as JP has suggested.
This is an opportunity for developing an intervention which can be used within or outside the LMS.
Rita
Thanks for your feedback, Rita. I will look at the article you recommended. I need to view the results of the surveys I sent out - maybe clinical reasoning is not what the students need at the moment. Will update you all tomorrow.
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