Walsh, Mike, Giddens, Jean and van Soeren, Mary (2010) Using virtual communities to promote interprofessional education: a North American / British cooperative venture. In: 5th All Together Better Health Conference, 6-9 April 2010, Sydney, Australia. (Unpublished) Full text not available from this repository.
(Contact the author)Abstract
Education today is moving away from didactic, classroom based, theoretical approaches towards learning experiences that mimic real clinical environments. Case studies and problem based learning (PBL) were innovative techniques that facilitated interprofessional learning. However they suffer from the limitations of being static and isolated from the complexity of everyday life. The focus tends to be on a problem rather than the person and their context, whilst the dynamic and complex nature of interprofessional working is not captured by static case studies. Our workshop will demonstrate a different approach through the development of dynamic, virtual communities, which serve as enhanced clinical practice environments for various health care professions. We have shared ideas and expertise in the creation of three such communities in the UK, USA and Canada each representing a small but diverse neighborhood. Our narrative pedagogy model uses a multimedia approach to bring our communities to life for students. We also work closely with service delivery agencies to ensure maximum realism, this allows us to explore interprofessional working as a key theme. Whether working online or in class, students access these interactions between health professionals, patients and families and base much of their learning on the problems and challenges they present. Through this interactive virtual clinical practice students learn with, from and about one another in ways similar to actual clinical situations. Interprofessional learning is facilitated by this context rich approach which produces re-usable resources, enhancing the sustainability of the model. Nursing, paramedic science, imaging science, social work and mental health students are currently involved in learning together whilst other agencies such as schools and the police are becoming involved. We will explore with participants how virtual communities could be used to facilitate their own interprofessional learning requirements, using our own experiences, evaluations and research findings as resources.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Workshop) |
|---|---|
| Related URL(s): | |
| Departments: | Academic Departments > Nursing, Health & Professional Practice (NHPP) |
| Depositing User: | Insight Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Feb 2012 15:34 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Jan 2024 09:15 |
| URI: | https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/1215 |
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