The role of e learning in clinical training -a critical evaluation

The role of e-Learning in clinical training -a critical

evaluationDr Goh Poh Sun

Associate Professor and Senior Consultant Department of Diagnostic Radiology

National University Hospital National University of Singapore

Does eLearning or TeL work? Is it useful? Flexible and easy to use?

Efficient, Effective, Impact, Useful

Viewpoint of students, teachers and administrators

Practitioners, Educational scholars

The 5 “Ws” and 1 “H” - Why, When, Where, What, Who and How?

Traditional vs eLearning or Technology enhanced learning (TeL), How to best blend and combine?

The 5 “Ws” and 1 “H”

Why - access, efficiency, effectiveness, visibility/peer review

When and Where - Before, During and After Class

What - Information/knowledge, Demonstrations/skills and attitudes

Who - UG, PG, CME/CPD/Lifelong

How - Formal, Informal, Just in time learning/performance support

Traditional vs eLearning or Technology enhanced learning (TeL), How to best blend and combine?

Traditional - excellent instructors, small class numbers/individual attention, matching schedules, motivation, skill, best performance by teachers, “tuned on” students (attentive, motivated, rested)

TeL - expand access (time, place, pace - type of content), curate best teaching/teachers, match best times for students, allows repeated reviews, content to be build on, visibility of content and educational process

How do you use TeL? What do you share? What do you do?

example and paradigm of the digital knowledge repository

contains both complete presentations and demonstrations - the cooked dishes

components that make up these presentations and demonstrations - the ingredients

key text, take home points

key references

tables, illustrations, multimedia clips, animations

assessment items, exercises

How do you use TeL? What do you share? What do you do?

Lets use a restaurant analogy, or cooking school example

Novices or beginners - set menu

For advanced learners - buffet

For senior students - chef’s menu, curated and personalised

For teachers/instructors - having access to full set of digital ingredients, partly completed and complete presentations allows teaching (or cooking) on demand, customised to needs of individual or groups of students

How do you start? Can you easily incorporate production, curation and dissemination into your day to day activities?

Everything I have learnt about eLearning

1.its the learning in (e)Learning that is the most important2.the quality of the content counts3.technology promotes access and broadens reach4.the most successful strategy is to blend digital with face to face5.digital content can and should be continuously refined, and customised to an

individual learner’s needs6.create or curate7.an indexed hyperlinked repository promotes use, re-use, and re-purposing8.digital teaching facilitates peer review, co-creation and curation of content9.a digital platform can promote and facilitate active and collaborative learning10.know the pedagogy and have technical know how, apply educational

theory and instructional design principles11.be prepared for lots of work, much much more than the preparation

required for a regular face to face class, symposium or workshop (at least 10 times more); the trade-off is that digital content once created or curated can be re-used and re-purposed if accessible via a hyperlinked indexed content repository

12.focus on creating and curating content in the most granular and reusable format

How to start

1.Do you (your department, your division, your institution) have a list of all educational presentations and teaching sessions given to undergraduates, postgraduates, and for CME/CPD over the last year?

2.Have you (your department, division and institution) kept a copy of all educational presentations?

3.Is the list of presentations AND copy of the educational presentations available and accessible?4.If no to any of the questions above, consider starting to do this prospectively, and then

retrospectively5.Then start selectively hyperlinking specific elements of the presentations, and making this

available, first internally on an intranet, then progressively on the internet6.Starting with a list of presentations, and key take home or practice points is a useful, and safe

way to start7.You can then share recent and authoritative articles and research papers, as well as practice

guidelines; and then progressively, key diagrams and illustrations (at all times maintaining confidentiality, protecting privacy, respecting intellectual property, and following professional and institutional standards and guidelines - i.e. always respect your patients, your students and your colleagues)

8.This process makes teaching (activities) visible, available for peer review, and scholarly (as well as potentially scholarship - for other educators and scholars to critique, and build upon)

9.Teaching and educational activities can be more easily assessed, evaluated and audited - by students, peers, and external educational training and accreditation bodies

10.This provides evidence for educational quality - not only following best practices and guidelines on paper, but by “showing what you actually teach with, and assess on”

What are some indicators of efficiency and effectiveness? Impact?

Views/audience/downloads/use and re-use

Shares/recommendations/citations

Ease of sharing, making available

Ease of building new, or refining content - add to, improve, make better, incorporating feedback, customise for different learning needs and audience

More front end effort, much less later

Scholarship - Describe, Disseminate, Critically evaluate

Does TeL work?

Why does it work?

When? Where? with Whom? With What? How to best use?

authentic, quality, useful content

what is actually used for teaching and training, and has been found useful

blending traditional face to face with online

incorporating deliberate practice and mastery training