Jill macdonald & carol gray l+tc blended learning

Editor's Notes

1. Compulsory elective in final year – are given enormous variety of areas of vet medicine/surgery/practice to choose from. This has to be fit around lecturers’ existing workload, so efficient teaching was vital The teaching methods we used not only developed core skills due to the course content, but also by the use of teaching strategy - demanded self-motivation, professionalism, contribution to group work and self-expression, reflective skills.
2. Time management, learning styles, personal SWOT analysis – allowed them to develop skills to assist them with completion of the elective Lots of other work helped to develop personal skills too Personal ethical profiles, QoL indicators, GTPC, welfare assessment of ‘real’ animal, W+E group discussions (face-to-face and online) Communication skills – creating clinical notes, workshop, client bereavement, referrals Legislation – briefly covered – consumer legislation and use of dangerous drugs Induction – to assist them in their all-important first job -Business planning presentation Critical reflection throughout
3. Google sites provided us with a flexible, user friendly platform to create a VLE, and for the students to create their own personalised online portfolio Timetable, details of face-to-face sessions, information on work completion and assessment, also able to be provided on Google site Self-directed research, shared and discussed along with students’ own views, via DBs Protocol creation facilitates implementing learning into a practice situation Learnt how to critique a paper, also covering a welfare aspect LD completed at the end of each week of study – assimilates learning, teaches students how to critically reflect (aided by our feedback), encourages them to self constructively criticise and devise strategies for future development Feedback – completed at the end of each week of work – assessment criteria and added comments Tutor support also offered via DBs as necessary
4. Straightforward navigation of site All learning resources accessible Discussion boards General DB to ask each other/tutors Q’s Only students and tutors have access to this site
5. Very easy to access student’s work Work placed on subpages for each week
6. Workshop – allowed further opportunity to practice diff situations in safe environment Ethics exercises – further opportunity to express opinions/knowledge with peers; development as ethical thinkers Interviews – professionalism, using experiences as vet students. Stations – ethics/stress in the profession Peer teaching an extremely valuable exercise. Teaching others is the summit of the pyramid! Helped them realise/revise their own previous learning, confidence, professionalism with peers Awareness of veterinary business and finances, presenting skills, constructive feedback skills Offline activities ‘tie in’ with and consolidate online work
7. Every piece of work or session completed counted towards assessment and final mark Criterion ref, but graded meets or exceeds Not met able to resubmit further work in order to meet criteria Final grade – school standard grade sheet
8. Self evaluation only More feedback on module content/teaching and assessment would have been useful Final LD entries whilst not evaluation provide an insight into how the students felt about the learning experience and what they had gained, and what they would change!
9. In some areas individual student’s self evaluation of competence actually decreased! Conscious incompetence? Topics such as ethics/welfare are briefly covered by syllabus so students may feel they are competent, then having studied in more depth will appreciate that it is a bigger subject than they thought! 8, 10, 13 got greatest change in results – law, business, GTPC. Areas not covered by BVSc syllabus? Areas which covered more ‘factual’ information (support networks, law, GTPC, referral) (and communication – covered by one-day practical), scored the highest ‘post elective’ scores
10. Key words taken from final LD entries These were things that they commented on most positively, or where they felt they had taken the most from the elective