Patient Andy

The educational intervention for my dissertation study began with this picture of patient Andy displayed on a screen while I told a story about Andy and Andy’s nurse. For this study, the desired learner outcomes from the use of storytelling as a teaching strategy were to engage the study participants (which were nursing students), evoke an emotional response, and facilitate critical reflection. And although the picture was obtained from the Internet and the patient’s name was fictitious, using a picture of a patient with obvious injuries, giving the patient a name, and telling a story that provided background about the patient, helped to “make it real” for the participants, set the stage for remainder of the educational module, and meet desired learner outcomes. An interesting observation that I made was that the students continued to look at patient Andy during the time I gave them to critically reflect on the story.

Faculty who teach f2f courses can learn from the successes of online instructors who use images to tell a story…………just as I did. Similarly, online faculty can learn from one another about the science of digital storytelling and more importantly the art of digital storytelling.

Here is another picture of a patient which was found at http://tcktcktck.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/public-health-doctor-CC-World-Bank-Photo-collection2013.jpg

Hi! My name is Darlene Burke, and I am a returning POT learner. Last semester, I learned a lot about online course design and pedagogy, as well as the use of technology to promote learning in the online environment. My overarching goal for this semester is to become more comfortable and competent with the use of technology. Since I recently completed my doctoral work (Hooray!!), my brain should be more receptive to learning POT-related material.

I have been teaching at MiraCosta College as adjunct faculty in nursing since retiring from the U.S. Navy in 2006. This semester my teaching assignments include f2f group tutoring for all four semesters of students in the RN program and facilitation of an f2f medical terminology course. Sometime in the near future, I hope to convert the medical terminology course from f2f to a hybrid. However, at the end of last semester, I found it interesting that not one student in the class said that they would have liked for the course, or part of the course, to be provided online. Although I cannot say definitively, I believe that the students felt this way because they “bonded” during group exercises and really loved their role-playing assignment.

I look forward to getting to know the new POT learners, reconnecting with returning POT learners, and working with the fabulous POT faculty!

Over the past 11 weeks, I have spent an average of 4 hours per week completing the readings, reviewing the videos, taking notes, using technologies, blogging, and responding to about two posts. However, I spent many addition hours trying to figure out how to use the technology….which is my Achilles.

The majority of my blogs were two-three paragraphs in length and contained mostly superficial reflections with an occasional analysis, link, and/or item. I did not actively participate in Diigo or Facebook groups, but I did listen in on one Google Hangout Session and attended three on-line training workshops.

The following are my weekly blogs with additional commentary about my learning experience:

My first-ever blog!!! Although, I did not express it in my Week 1 Introduction, I was so thrilled that I figured out how to blog in WordPress.

As someone who has yet to teach an online course, I found the title, “Where the Hell to Start” very appropriate for the Week 2 assignment. My Beginner’s Questionnaire reflected that I am presentation-oriented. However, as I incorporate one group exercise in just about every f2f class that I teach, I began considering what technology was available to help me continue to continue group work in an online environment.

During Week 3, I learned a lot more about technologies, and especially the product Wimba.

The Week 4 learning resources offered a “plethora” of information that was a bit overwhelming for me. I will definitely be reviewing this material again.

As I have constructed a syllabus for a f2f course, and completed a doctoral course in an online environment, I had a very good understanding of the material covered in Week 5.

I was not at all surprised that I scored quite low on the technology quiz administered during Week 6. After taking the quiz, I proceeded to struggle with how to embed a YouTube video in WordPress. What a surprise!!!

During Week 7, I found the information about setting up an online course to be very practical. An important “take-away” point for me was that the number of students in the course is going to be a major determinant of the design.

Although the information offered during Week 8 on building a community was not new to me, I really enjoyed how it was presented in a real world setting. Again, the struggle for me will be how to capitalize on technology for building a sense of community in an online environment.

Role-playing and reflective journaling are teaching/learning strategies commonly used in nursing education curriculum. During Week 9, I learned about some of the technologies that I could use to promote role-play in the online environment. I also came to realize that for most learning experiences, blogging could replace reflective journaling.

I learned a lot about Intellectual Property, Fair Use and Open Educational Resources during Week 10. As I strongly voiced my opinion that ethics needed to part of the conversation on all three of these topics, I received “lots” of responses to my post.

For Week 11, I had hoped to produce a YouTube video, but realized that I did not have the best equipment to do so. I was able to figure out how to use SoundCloud for my presentation, but needed Lisa’s help to embed it. As I have not yet taught an online course, my presentation about how to convert a f2f course to an online course, was pretty basic. However, it did help me formulate my thoughts before proposing to the Dean that the Medical Terminology Course be offered as a hybrid course in the Spring.

Now that my doctoral dissertation has received committee approval, my plan is to go back and read this material again and better learn about the technologies associated with online teaching. I also plan to return in February for Part II of this great program. My sincere thanks to everyone involved with POT!!!

Here is my discussion via soundcloud in which I discuss course development and converting a face-to-face course to an online course.

This week, I learned a lot about Fair Use, Intellectual Property, and Open Educational Resources (OERs). The first important “take away” point for me is that, under the TEACH Act, there is inequity in fair use when comparing online and f2f instruction. A second point/recommendation is that making a website password protected is one of the best ways to protect intellectual property. Yet another important point is that I should explore open educational resources for use in my courses.

In reflecting on the readings and supplemental resources, I identified the explicit themes and topics of evolution, creativity, regulation, fairness, law, and academic integrity. However, what there was not much attention/discussion about were ethical considerations. For instance, Ko and Rossen provided very useful tips to encourage academic integrity, but did not provide ethical principles that could be used to teach students about academic integrity in the online environment. Another example is that we were told that the use of OERs in our courses can save students money. However, I cannot help but “ethically consider” that using OERs in my course also might lead to a loss of money for a book author(s). Bottom line, I am of the opinion that ethical principles should frame all of these discussions.

Next week, I will create my first YouTube video.

Two online activities that I would like to implement with nursing students are role-play and blogging. Role-play also will benefit students in the medical terminology course that I teach. The benefit of role-play is that it is constructivist in nature, provides practice for students before they have to interact with real patients, projects realism, and enhances self-awareness.

What I understand from reading the literature on role-play in the online environment is that it can be web-based with a simulated environment or it can be a patient care-related case study in which students provide care to a patient using technology via voice thread. I plan to further investigate these options.

Blogging is an activity that I will absolutely use with nursing students. Almost on a daily basis there is evidence in the literature of what worked well in the practice in caring for patients that needs to be shared with others. Accordingly, blogging is the perfect venue to do this. On the other hand, I am still reflecting on how blogging might contribute to the learning environment in the medical terminology course.

In my opinion, community is essential to the success of all courses. This week, the chapter readings and the videos provided very practical information about “building a community” within an online course. However, I do plan to apply some of the concepts and strategies that I learned from Pilar to the f2f medical terminology course that I am currently teaching. The concepts include sharing, feeling safe, and closeness. The strategies include having students invest in what they are learning, using polls, sending “check-in” e-mails, providing personalized feedback to students, and being more of a participant than a facilitator in the role of instructor.

Building a sense of community fits very well with nursing and allied health courses. For example, as nursing students move into the hospital setting to take care of patients, there is so much pertinent information that they can “share” with each other about their experiences in an online environment. With students in the medical terminology course, a sense of community can be facilitated by students speaking to each other using medical terminology.

In moving forward, I realize that building a sense of community in online environment will require the use of technology. So, once I have completed my doctoral dissertation, I am buying myself a new computer. However, before I do so I will be asking the POT facilitators and my fellow POT learners to provide me with input on what “bells and whistles” should come with the computer for the purpose of online teaching.

Oh, before I go…….I have a quick question. I am curious to know how you greet your students (collectively) in both an online and f2f environment. For example, do say “Hello class,” or “Hello everyone?” I get the sense that younger generation students find the term “class” to be too formal.

The focus of this week’s learning activities was setting up an online course. The Ko and Rossen textbook provided some useful recommendations on ways to structure the course. Lisa’s blog also provided very insightful and practical information about online course development that I doubt you can find in a book. Lastly, the manifesto on online training provided “food for thought” regarding all aspects of online instruction.

When considering the structure of the course, I feel that weekly segments will work best. And although I may not have a say on how many students are enrolled in my course, I would prefer not to have more than 25 students. As my favorite teaching strategy is to ask critical thinking questions, I will need to design the course so that there are ample opportunities for me promote critical thinking among students. Lastly. in keeping with Lisa’s statement that a priority of students is learning from the teacher, I really want to ensure that I am more of a teacher than a facilitator in the online course that I develop.

http://youtu.be/oomypi2Hyjo

I was not surprised that I had a low score on the technology quiz. The reason I am attending this academy is to learn more about technology.

In this video, a student is singing a song that includes medical terms. I chose this video because I gave my students an extra credit assignment in which writing a song that includes 20 medical terms was an option. It has been my experience that the song writing is both fun and an effective learning approach. What makes it effective is that the student must put the medical term into context.

There were many great recommendations offered in the videos and in the chapter. The first recommendation that I will most likely follow is to provide very specific language/criteria regarding instructor and student expectations for the course. This will be especially important with regard to course participation and assignments. Among the specifics that I plan to provide are due dates with times/ time zones for assignments and discussion posts. I also will inform the students as to when they can expect instructor feedback and graded assignments.

As a doctoral leaner that recently completed coursework in an online environment, I was frustrated with the established deadlines for assignments/posts and not receiving feedback in a timely manner (or at least what I considered timely). The frustration with the established deadlines was that they were all in central time. As a Westcoaster, I hated not having 2  additional hours in the evening to complete my course work.

Another recommendation that I will follow is providing redundancy. As such, I will ensure that important info is located in more places than the syllabus. Yet another suggestion that I will use is to provide the syllabus as a google doc as well as entering into BlackBoard under content. I personally love having a hard copy of the course schedule………and I like the schedule to be a in a table format.

The most striking difference between the online syllabi and syllabi in the textbook is that the online syllabi are in fact interactive. The hyperlinks in particular make it a living document.