I would like to explain how the MPil DISEASE came about. The MPhil class was practicing blogging and I wanted to write MPhil DEGREE. Deep in thought about diseases you can get from dumping sites, I wrote Disease instead. do we arr are inflicted with this disease that can only be cured by passing the course after the dissertation!
I was in turmoil in deciding upon the topic for my e-learning assignments. There is such a wide scope of topics that was applicable. I wanted to choose a topic that could be to the advantage of my own department, students and facilitators. My teaching domain is Service Learning (SL). I realized that I had to keep the project small and simple, and every topic I chose turned out to be a major project! Then came the student strikes!. The one contingency plan after the other was made at the University and we were swamped with work to try and catch up classes and assessments. Important classes were missed, one of them being a class for recapping history taking in patients for the 4th year MBChB students. Our students follow a longitudinal SL course, and in their 4th year there is a capstone SL module where the students have to fully screen patients for health care problems, make a differential diagnosis and refer them for management. To be able to do that they had to be able to take a comprehensive history from a patient. In the past this has been a big problem for us because the students battled with the skill. They had learnt history taking for 3 years prior to this block, but they could not meet the expected objectives. Even though revision material and instructions were given on blackboard as pre-requisite to the clinical training in the community, the students still came unprepared to the clinical sites for screening. I implemented an additional facilitation session in class before going to the service learning block. The standard of history taking became better, but still some students did not know their theory, a great embarrassment in front of the patients! Attendance of the classes was also not satisfactory. In my search for topics for my assignment I came upon a video that presented history taking for medical students that I found very good. The presenter had an informal attitude and made looking at the video a pleasure. I posted the 3 videos on blackboard and what a great response! Students said they were tired of reading the information, and by looking and listening they found much more to learn. It shows that it was never necessary for me to re-invent the wheel – I just had to go and search on the internet Duh Debbie!
MY EXPECTATIONS OF THE E-LEARNING MODULE There are so many stakeholders in digital technology in Higher Education that have high and advanced expectations of e-learning courses, that I am hesitant to verbalise my own. First of all I would like to become skilled in the on-line use of educational material, whether it is of my own design or any one of the existent programs available on You Tube and e-Health. I do not like asking other people to do my work for me (I am a bad manager and delegator regarding that - I know what I want and sometimes feel other people do not do it “my way”). Well with e-learning there is NO MY WAY – I feel I do not know what I am doing. If I look at the wonderful videos on line, I realize I have a very long way still to go. But like Lianne said – the module inspired her, and look where she is now! Good for you, Lianne! I would like to use an existing video that is on You Tube regarding History Taking that I found very interesting and educational. It is not a boring presentation and recaps basic principles. I used it with the 4th year MBChB students as preparation for the catch-up sessions of the students strikes for the Service Learning block, and the results were much better than the previous sessions. Feedback was good as well! Together with it the students will write an on-line test on blackboard on the day that they go out to the community for the first time in their second year to assess if they have met the objectives regarding the theory. The skill will be tested in the community while they are doing screening under the supervision and assessment of facilitator, from SMU. I would have liked to have more time to embark on this journey that is talked about and see where it will lead me. Service Learning is a course that has integration from many disciplines in the MBChB curriculum that has to be taken into account as academic rivalry can be a barrier to successful teaching. I am definitely going to implement digital media in the 4th year SL curriculum, as it seems to have met with great satisfaction from the majority of students.
It's very challenging to study in a technology driven world and it's worsening the MPhil disease.
ReplyDeletewe all have the mphil disease !
ReplyDeleteLOL! Thanks ladies for keeping it lighthearted!
ReplyDeletewe all have the mphil disease !
ReplyDeleteIts amazing how I do so well...then there is an exam.
ReplyDeleteI would like to explain how the MPil DISEASE came about. The MPhil class was practicing blogging and I wanted to write MPhil DEGREE. Deep in thought about diseases you can get from dumping sites, I wrote Disease instead. do we arr are inflicted with this disease that can only be cured by passing the course after the dissertation!
ReplyDeleteI was in turmoil in deciding upon the topic for my e-learning assignments. There is such a wide scope of topics that was applicable. I wanted to choose a topic that could be to the advantage of my own department, students and facilitators. My teaching domain is Service Learning (SL). I realized that I had to keep the project small and simple, and every topic I chose turned out to be a major project!
ReplyDeleteThen came the student strikes!. The one contingency plan after the other was made at the University and we were swamped with work to try and catch up classes and assessments. Important classes were missed, one of them being a class for recapping history taking in patients for the 4th year MBChB students.
Our students follow a longitudinal SL course, and in their 4th year there is a capstone SL module where the students have to fully screen patients for health care problems, make a differential diagnosis and refer them for management. To be able to do that they had to be able to take a comprehensive history from a patient. In the past this has been a big problem for us because the students battled with the skill. They had learnt history taking for 3 years prior to this block, but they could not meet the expected objectives. Even though revision material and instructions were given on blackboard as pre-requisite to the clinical training in the community, the students still came unprepared to the clinical sites for screening.
I implemented an additional facilitation session in class before going to the service learning block. The standard of history taking became better, but still some students did not know their theory, a great embarrassment in front of the patients! Attendance of the classes was also not satisfactory.
In my search for topics for my assignment I came upon a video that presented history taking for medical students that I found very good. The presenter had an informal attitude and made looking at the video a pleasure. I posted the 3 videos on blackboard and what a great response! Students said they were tired of reading the information, and by looking and listening they found much more to learn.
It shows that it was never necessary for me to re-invent the wheel – I just had to go and search on the internet
Duh Debbie!
Diseased Debbie
MY EXPECTATIONS OF THE E-LEARNING MODULE
ReplyDeleteThere are so many stakeholders in digital technology in Higher Education that have high and advanced expectations of e-learning courses, that I am hesitant to verbalise my own.
First of all I would like to become skilled in the on-line use of educational material, whether it is of my own design or any one of the existent programs available on You Tube and e-Health. I do not like asking other people to do my work for me (I am a bad manager and delegator regarding that - I know what I want and sometimes feel other people do not do it “my way”).
Well with e-learning there is NO MY WAY – I feel I do not know what I am doing. If I look at the wonderful videos on line, I realize I have a very long way still to go. But like Lianne said – the module inspired her, and look where she is now! Good for you, Lianne!
I would like to use an existing video that is on You Tube regarding History Taking that I found very interesting and educational. It is not a boring presentation and recaps basic principles. I used it with the 4th year MBChB students as preparation for the catch-up sessions of the students strikes for the Service Learning block, and the results were much better than the previous sessions. Feedback was good as well!
Together with it the students will write an on-line test on blackboard on the day that they go out to the community for the first time in their second year to assess if they have met the objectives regarding the theory.
The skill will be tested in the community while they are doing screening under the supervision and assessment of facilitator, from SMU.
I would have liked to have more time to embark on this journey that is talked about and see where it will lead me. Service Learning is a course that has integration from many disciplines in the MBChB curriculum that has to be taken into account as academic rivalry can be a barrier to successful teaching.
I am definitely going to implement digital media in the 4th year SL curriculum, as it seems to have met with great satisfaction from the majority of students.