Content uploaded by Santosh Khanal
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Santosh Khanal on Jul 09, 2015
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
Using online learning modules to fight against antibiotic resistance in Australia
Abstract
NPS MedicineWise NPS MedicineWise and the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) have launched a series of online learning modules designed to help combat antibiotic resistance in hospitals. The aim of the modules is to fill a previously unmet need for an online teaching resource on a common curriculum for hospitals and universities. The modules address specific areas where antibiotic use in hospitals needs improvement. Problem Based Learning has been used as pedagogical approach for the modules. Clinical scenarios are presented with a logical progression of tasks including clinical assessment and diagnosis, investigations, interpretation of results, and antibiotic selection. Expert advice and feedback has been incorporated at each step, helping to improve learning outcomes. Learners can access the modules at their own pace and revisit them upon completion. We report, for the first time, participants' perceptions of the antimicrobial modules as learning resource, usability issues, and possible areas of improvement.
Education is widely recognized as one of the cornerstones of successful antimicrobial stewardship programmes. There is evidence
of important knowledge flaws around antimicrobial prescribing among both medical students and clinicians. Educational interventions
improve antimicrobial prescribing, but traditional tools may be insufficient to deliver training to meet the complex demands
of global healthcare professionals working across a diverse range of healthcare and resource settings. The educational solutions
increasingly need to be timely, efficient, pragmatic, high quality, aligned to the needs of the professional in a specific
context, sustainable and cost-effective. Online learning has been playing a growing role in education about antimicrobial
stewardship and the recent phenomenon of massive open online courses (MOOCs) offers novel and additional opportunities to
deliver relevant information to a wide range of people. Additional research on MOOCs as an educational approach is needed
in order to define their effectiveness, sustainability and the best ways to achieve the intended results. Although the precise
value of new online strategies such as MOOCs is ill defined, they certainly will have an important place in increasing awareness
and improving antimicrobial prescribing.
The changing nature of distance education in the higher education context is investigated in this chapter, particularly in relation to "massification" and the ethics involved in delivering technology enhanced courses to an increasingly diverse student body. Institutions may have developed policies in response to this, but it would seem that few academics have a coherent way of adhering to them. In addition, there is significant research suggesting that reliance on text-based instruction may disadvantage some students. This chapter draws on four case studies, emanating from recent research, demonstrating that higher levels of student engagement are possible when course materials are designed to cater for students with different approaches to learning. This chapter also suggests a more ethical approach to developing courses is a two-phased approach: (1) integrating a range of multimodal learning and teaching strategies; and (2) giving students the opportunity to discover their preferred approach to learning.
Distance education courses have been traditionally delivered via static print-based packages. However, advances in technology and greater use of multimedia in education have provided an opportunity for course designers to enrich students' learning experiences by providing technology-based learning resources that comprise a range of multimedia and online components. Driving forces including pedagogical, opportunistic, pragmatic, and psychological motivations have encouraged educators to adopt educational technologies for designing and delivering their courses. In this paper, the findings of two electronic surveys used to determine distance education students' perceptions of two marketing undergraduate courses that have recently been converted from a print-based to a technology-based course (comprising an interactive CD and a course homepage) are presented. The findings indicate that respondents enjoyed using the course CD, found the course CD to be easy to use and navigate, and agreed that the course CD had assisted their performance in the course. The findings also indicated that respondents perceived the multimedia elements that were housed on the course resources to be valuable in terms of achieving desired learning outcomes.
The incorporation of personal response system (PRS) clickers into teaching pedagogy has created implications for teaching practice and student satisfaction. Using a current undergraduate business student population, the authors measure student attitudes and preferences and identify student performance outcomes relating to the use of PRS clickers. Study results validate the broad applicability of this technology by showing positive student attitudes, learning experiences, and the mitigation of barriers toward acceptance of this technology. Importantly, measures of student performance correlate to self-reported learning outcomes realized through using PRS clickers. The study also finds evidence that PRS clickers benefit those students who are frequently disadvantaged in the classroom. Specifically, students with a low need for cognition or facing cultural barriers are shown to have a better learning experience when using clicker technology. The article concludes with recommendations on applying PRS clicker technology to teaching practice and identifies areas for future investigation.
Congruence between instruction and assessment is an essential condition for realising such innovations in education as problem-based and life-long learning. Schools employing problem-based learning have always struggled to achieve congruence between their objectives and student achievement assessment. Reality has taught us that the ideals of problem-based and life-long learning are difficult to translate into an assessment system. This paper is a case study of the development of an assessment program in a problem-based learning curriculum, its pitfalls, the compromises between the ideal and the attainable, and the way in which a number of solutions were eventually found. It demonstrates the power of student assessment. Our law faculty developed a new assessment system based on a range of assessment methods, such as block tests, portfolios and formative computer-based tests, whereby the assessment program was continuously monitored and evaluated. The assessment program enhanced skills and changed attitudes that had been opposed to the ideals of life-long and problem-based learning. Empirical data on the quality of the new assessment system reveals that we went a step forward in matching problem-based learning with student assessment.
Purpose: Although the use of problem-based learning (PBL) is widespread in U.S. medical schools, its true prevalence is unknown. This study examined the prevalence of PBL in preclinical curricula. Method: In 2003, a Web-based questionnaire was sent to education deans or directors of medical education at the 123 Liaison Committee on Medical Education-accredited medical schools in the United States. The respondents indicated whether or not they were using PBL and what percentage of faculty–student contact hours in the preclinical years used PBL. Result: All 123 schools responded. Of them, 70% used PBL in the preclinical years. Of schools using PBL, 45% used it for less than 10% of their formal teaching, while 6% used it for more than half of their formal teaching. Of the 30% of schools not using PBL, 22% had used it in the past, and 2% had plans to incorporate it in the future. Conclusions: Use of PBL is widespread in the preclinical curricula of U.S. medical schools. That use is limited, however, since fewer than 6% of programs use it for more than 50% of their instruction.
Based on the GlobalEd inter‐university computer conference, this study examined how effective “social presence” is as a predictor of overall learner satisfaction in a text‐based medium. The stepwise regression analysis converged on a three‐predictor model revealing that social presence (the degree to which a person is perceived as “real” in mediated communication), student perception of having equal opportunity to participate, and technical skills accounted for about 68% of the explained variance. Social presence alone contributed about 60% of this variance, suggesting that it may be a very strong predictor of satisfaction. Reliability data on the social presence scale is provided. The results also indicated that participants who felt a higher sense of social presence enhanced their socio‐emotional experience by using emoticons to express missing nonverbal cues in written form. These findings have implications for designing academic computer conferences where equal attention must be paid to designing techniques that enhance social presence.