Hello again,

Hello all!

Due to conflicting workshops on February 27th, the EKM workshop on Flexible Learning has been rescheduled for Thursday March 6th in room T182 at 12pm. This workshop will present “Tools and Approaches to Support Flexible Learning.” A range of practical and creative strategies faculty might wish to adopt to support flexible learning practices within their courses will be explored with Marc Legacy.

Please RSVP to Allana if you would like to attend.

Hope to see you there!

Hi all,

Thanks to those that attended the EKM Journal Club this past Thursday! For those of you unable to attend, here is a synopsis of the discussion.

Blended and flexible learning are innovative teaching techniques talked about widely at UBC this year. The topic has been covered in journal clubs, workshops and the EKM education forum. Also, the School of Nursing has recently appointed Marc Legacy with the role of Teaching and Flexible Learning Associate to support faculty. He is developing a section of this blog site, so come back soon and see what is coming up.

In our Journal Club this month we looked at Jokinen and Mikkonen’s work titled “Teachers’ experiences of teaching in a blended learning environment”. The piece is available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471595313000723.

This paper reported instructors experiences in introducing a blended learning undergraduate nursing program, using focus groups to explore teachers perceptions.

Blended Learning

Blended learning is often a combination of in-person and online learning, though various other strategies can be integrated as well. Blended learning can be any alternative to didactic-style teaching. Some notes from our meeting:

• Faculty admit there is the tendency to think blended learning involves simply asking students to work online or read independently.
• Blended learning is often self-directed but it does not necessarily have to be independent work.
• Students still need guidance and support.
• Providing a range of clearly defined activities is useful however students can spread themselves too thin if too many options are provided
• Students can take on the role of the teacher and teachers can learn from student’s experiences as well. This can create a rich and satisfying learning environment.
• Students are very resourceful online and can use online resources very effectively.

Flexible Learning

Flexible learning is any way of teaching and learning that meets the needs of the learner and the requirements of the discipline while still benefitting from the expertise of the instructor. Flexibility can be logistical such as the location, time, pacing and credentialing or pedagogical such as the method of course delivery. Additional notes from our discussion:

• Workload for students can actually increase as students are often asked to keep up to date with online class discussions and often these discussions are lengthy.
• Workload for instructors can also increase. Classrooms are an efficient way to deliver a lot of information to a large number of students at the same time and answer questions in real time. Without this system, instructors may be asked to respond to students.
• As nursing is a profession that requires adept interpersonal skills, meeting face to face has increased importance. Interacting with a professor or with peers online, even if a video function is employed, is not as beneficial to teach skills like communication and active listening.

Autonomy

Does providing more autonomy to students improve learning?

• In our meeting, we held a poll on this question with mixed results. Some faculty members felt that autonomy in the classroom and clinical experience allows students to delve deeply into their individualized interests. Other faculty members felt that autonomy has the power to improve student learning but the responsibility is up to the students. Autonomy does not necessarily lead to improved student outcomes.
• As the UBC program changes rotations every six weeks, by the time expectations are set, the course ends before much autonomy is given.
• Some students prefer autonomy and excel when they are given choice and independence. Other students like additional direction. Perhaps the most flexible of teaching styles would be able to accommodate both of these learning styles.
• A comparison was made between autonomy of learning and current changes in hospital workload structure. Currently, some health authorities are changing to a workload model whereby nurses take on greater number of patients and work directly with Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs). Nurses are responsible for care coordination, hand out medications and complete physical assessments while LPNs assist with many of the activities of daily living.  With this structure in mind, students need to know how to work autonomously. A faculty member suggested that some students think they want to work only in a hospital setting because it is seemingly more structured. With the new role of RNs being mainly care coordination, this may not be true for much longer. In that case, greater autonomy with learning at the School of Nursing is necessary to provide students with the skills needed to work autonomously in the hospitals.

Paper Key Findings

• Jokinen and Mikkonen found that collaborative planning is key to the success of blended learning. Working collaboratively with colleagues to plan courses led to expertise development and learning and teaching enhancement.
• The authors also noted that the size of class is important for online learning. Forty-five students are considered a large classroom for online learning. We are lucky to have groups of about twenty students for most of our curriculum.
• Instructors had to be intentional with the precious face-to-face time and give students thorough instructions for independent online learning time.
• Instructors found online learning to be a challenge for themselves and were disappointed in students’ ability to glean important material from the provided online resources.
• The authors found that different pedagogic skills and approaches are required compared to traditional face-to-face learning. Instructors needed to learn these new approaches and it took students a while to become comfortable with them.

Paper Analysis

The paper was a useful piece of work. However, details of the researchers’ approach and method of analysis was a little limited and poorly described. Furthermore, we were concerned that the focus group size was rather small leading to a higher risk of bias, and insufficient members to promote an in-depth discussion. The group size in this paper was 4 participants for  two groups. Our group considered that focus groups should ideally have about 6-12 participants.

For future studies, we would be interested in understanding students’ perception of blended learning too.  It would be interesting to compare this with instructors’ experience. Lastly, we were still left wondering what the impact of the clinical aspect of the program studied awas as this was not really reported in the study.

Future of Blended Learning at SoN

Marc Legacy is available to support faculty members in using flexible learning techniques in courses and the evaluation of these techniques. Marc is available in room 280 at the UBC School of Nursing.

Also, please join us for our next workshop on February 27 in room T182 at 12pm.

Due to popular demand in this workshop we will be presenting “Tools and Approaches to Support Flexible Learning.” In this session we will explore a range of practical and creative strategies faculty might wish to adopt to support flexible learning practices within their courses. Marc Legacy will be attending this workshop to support with our ongoing exploration of this exciting topic!

Hello all,

Dr. Davies’ workshop from January 27 on “Mental Health History Resources for Nursing Education and Practice: A workshop on community-informed mental health curriculum.” has now been posted. Click here to access the webcast.

Enjoy!

Welcome back!

The EKM will be co-hosting a workshop by Visiting Professor, Dr. Megan Davies on January 27 at noon. The workshop will center on “Mental Health History Resources for Nursing Education and Practice: A workshop on community-informed mental health curriculum.” A new set of web-based mental health curricula which employs historical documents and artistic expressions of current service users as tools for fostering informed and empathic practice will be presented. Participants will also learn about the unique way in which the resources were created and have an opportunity to use and evaluate the resources. Click here for more information about History in Practice.

Location: UBC School of Nursing, Room T206
Date and Time: January 27, 2014 at 12:00 – 1:00 pm

December’s postponed Journal Club on Teaching in a Blended Learning Environment will be rescheduled to Tuesday February 13, 2014 at noon. The journal we are looking at is:

Jokinen, P., & Mikkonen, I. (2013). Teachers’ experiences of teaching in a blended learning environment. Nurse education in practice, 13(6), 524–8.

Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471595313000723

If you would like to attend either/both of these events please RSVP to Allana. We look forward to seeing you there!

P.S. There is a useful site on flexible approaches to learning here: The Hyflex Blended Learning Model

Hello all,

It looks like today is quite a busy day for everyone so we have decided to postpone this month’s Journal Club until the new year. We haven’t set a date yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

Hi all,

We are proud to offer the following two research funding opportunities. Get your applications in soon to take advantage of these generous awards!

EKM Conference Presentation Fund

The Elizabeth Kenny McCann Educational Conference Presentation Fund was designed to support UBC School of Nursing faculty and students (graduate and undergraduate) to present papers or posters at education conferences (e.g. Clinical Lab Conferences, NEP/NET, etc.). This fund is open for applications up until January 3, 2014 for conferences in 2014. Applications are welcome at any time before January 3, 2013, and will be reviewed as they are submitted on a first-come, first-served basis. Click here for more details.

Educational Research Projects Competition

With funding from the 2013-2014 Elizabeth Kenny McCann Scholar program, the second funding round of the EKM Educational Research Projects is in full launch. This competition is designed to support small-scale educational research projects in the UBC School of Nursing (to a maximum of $2,000 per project). This competition is open to all UBC School of Nursing faculty, adjunct faculty and graduate students. Applications for 2014 must be received by February 2, 2014 @ 16:00. Click here for more details.

Greetings all!

Please join us in two weeks for a closer look at nursing instructors’ experiences of teaching in blended classrooms. We will look at a program that integrates face-to-face learning, online learning and learning in and about work to deepen learning. With all of the recent discussions and activity around flexible learning at UBC, we thought this paper would be timely for discussion. The journal we are looking at is:

Jokinen, P., & Mikkonen, I. (2013). Teachers’ experiences of teaching in a blended learning environment. Nurse education in practice, 13(6), 524–8.

Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471595313000723

The Journal Club will take place on Monday December 9th at 12:00pm in room T182. We hope you can make it!

In the new year, we look forward to bringing you a fascinating workshop on history in nursing education. This workshop will focus on a new educational health history resource. It will take place on January 27th at 12:00pm.

Please RSVP to Allana for one or both of these intreguing events.

Thank you to all who were able to attend the journal club this week for an interesting discussion about the evaluation of students in clinical practice in nursing schools. If you were unable to come but are interested in reading the paper we discussed, it can be found here.

Exploring the Issue of Failure to Fail in a Nursing Program
Sylvie Larocque & Florence Loyce Luhanga
International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship. Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 1–8, ISSN (Online) 1548-923X, ISSN (Print) 2194-5772, DOI: 10.1515/ijnes-2012-0037, June 2013

Larocque and Luhanga provide a description of faculty members’, advisors’ and preceptors’ experience with what they describe as “failure to fail” in nursing education. The results from their study suggest that failing a student is a challenging process and that academic and emotional support are needed for all involved parties. There is a strong belief that consequences for programs, faculty and students follow when students fail a rotation. They outline a number of personal, professional and structural barriers to failing students, including the perceived tarnishing of the school’s reputation due to student failure. Larocque and Luhunga suggest that documentation, communication and support can improve assessment, evaluation and intervention of this process.

We started our discussion by looking at their assumption that failure to fail is an established phenomenon in nursing schools. Attendees shared whether or not they considered this was true to their own experiences and there was agreement it was a concern, although its nature remained unclear.

Regulatory and Legal Issues

The participants were asked: Are educators legally accountable for their students if they pass unsafe practitioners?

In the article, the authors argued that there is a legal responsibility of clinical instructors to ensure graduates are practicing safely. Technically, the authors argue if an issue of malpractice ensues, the instructor who gave the student a passing grade could potentially be held accountable if there was a clear audit trail of evidence that the instructor was at fault. The group suggested that because nursing is a regulated profession, it in fact would be the future nurse who would be responsible for his or her practice after graduating in the first instance not the instructor who taught them. However, they (or the patient/relatives) could still make a case it was because they had been improperly educated or assessed in some way, and pass the vicarious liability on to the School. However, the likelihood of this occuring would seem slim, and the burden of proof would rest with the student. There are grey areas, for example, students are able to work after they have graduated but before they have taken (or passed) the CRNE (although not as a full RN). The article gave an example of an instructor who decided to fail a student because they were deemed not safe to practice but the instructor’s decision was overridden by the school. It was suggested that in this case if the clinical instructor documented this thoroughly that they would not be legally liable for this students further practice, but that the School may well be.

We discussed if these issues had ever come to court in BC or Canada. However, no cases of students bringing clinical instructors or Nursing schools to court in Canada after failing clinical practice were known of, or could be found. In order to make a successful case against a clinical instructors decision, there would have to be substantial burden of proof. The paper cites cases, but none of these transpired to be for clinical practice or even in nursing. There were however, cases of students taking legal action against Universities following academic failure. In these cases the courts predominantly side with the University, unless there was clear evidence of malpractice, or unfair treatment of the student.

Teachers Responsibilities

The group was asked: how can teachers assess a student’s competence effectively in a short period of time?

In a program structured around 6 week clinical rotations, effectively assessing the safety and competency of a student’s practice is a challenge. The group noted that the criteria for safe and unsafe practice need to be clearly communicated to both clinical instructors and students. With this information clearly laid out, a conversation with a student about not meeting competencies may be less stressful. Instructors must engage in the due process required when they are worried about the success of a student (which in the School is established in a process involving learning plans, and midpoint formal assessments).

There was also a brief discussion on the possibility of peer-evaluation, although it was acknowledged the practicalities of using this for clinical practice assessment made this problematic.

Learning Plan Use

It was suggested that learning plans that are currently used could be more effective in mitigating some of the problems discussed in the article on failure to fail. Stiudents suggested  that currently, some instructors use them effectively in evaluations whilst others ask students to fill them out and approve them without any further discussion or follow-up. For some students, the learning plans are therefore seen as just busy work. It was suggested that perhaps, if these learning plans were completed more consistently and instructors referred back to them throughout the rotation they would be able to assess and document students’ competence more effectively before the end of the rotation.

Shift Duration

Another suggestion was to increase the number of rotations employing eight hour shifts three times per week instead of twelve hour shifts twice per week. The twelve hour shifts have become popular, but this means the students spend less actual days in the units. With eight hour shifts, students have more days in the hospital with their clinical instructor in which to be assessed and worked with.

Continuity of Assessment

The group were asked: should teachers be able to see a student’s previous performance in the program?

Attendees had mixed responses to this question (generally along faculty/student lines). Some felt that they might be unfavourably labelled when instructors looked at past assessments, if the student had experienced difficulties. Others felt that as professional educators they should be able to see if the current behaviour they are experiencing the students clinical practice is a trend, and knowledge of what the strengths and weaknesses and levels of experience of all students is educationally valuable. The issue of trust is important here. If students feel they cannot trust their instructors then the whole assessment process becomes problematic. Student’s do have a right to appeal and there are processes to raise concerns if they feel they are being unfairly assessed. However, the power differentials were acknowledged. In the School the instructor is asked to look at the student’s previous evaluations to better support their development in practice, and overall this was seen to be a positive action.

It was also noted that if instructors were able to see that they were not the first instructor to struggle with a particular aspect of student competence they would feel more confident in approaching the course leader. It was also suggested that in some cases instructors may be reluctant to make the decision to approach the school or fail a student, as it could be seen as a failure on their part. It was argued that there will most likely have been many issues along the way (rather than single catastrophic events) and if instructors can see this in previous evaluations, they may feel better placed to make sound assessment decisions.

Program Structure

Another consideration raised in the paper was deciding if a student should fail a clinical practicum may also be affected by where it occurs the structure of the program. The research in the paper was with final-practicum students and preceptors in a single university. There may have been different results if the research had been undertaken with first or second year clinical courses, or in different program structures. For example, if a student fails a professional course in our BSN program, they will normally require an additional year to complete the program. With the previous BSN structure, it was acknowledged that students more often left the program for either four or eight months, and could then rejoin. It was suggested that these factors may be taken into account in assessment decisions but was agreed that these considerations would never trump decisions on competence and the safety of patients.

Critique of Paper

Overall the paper was felt to be rather problematic from a number of perspectives. The group concluded that the findings from this work are interesting but overall appear rather self-evident, bringing little new to knowledge of the phenomenon. Details of the methodology were a bit scant, and the research question posed was poorly constructed as a highly leading question. We were left wanting more discussion of the phenomenon, and discussion of practical details, trends and potential solutions to these issues.  The group felt that the phenomenon of failure to fail and it’s characteristics would be very difficult to establish by the means undertaken by the researchers. The sample was very small (n=13) and targeted at specific instructors who had negative experiences (one of whom had experienced having their own assessment decision overturned). Other indicators such as historical failure rates, higher incidence of malpractice or clinical incompetence in new graduates might help substantiate it as a significant educational issue Furthermore, a more open investigation of instructors experiences in dealing with students in jeopardy might have helped achieve more useful information to substantiate and characterize the phenomenon of failure to fail.

Overall the phenomenon was found to be ill-defined, and this paper specifically examined clinical failure at the end of the program. We considered if this would this be any different than if the questions were targeted earlier in the program. Earlier in the discussion it was suggested that these students should be flagged and supported much earlier in the program. However, it was suggested that perhaps a reason while students might fail their preceptorship (rather than other practicums) was because they simply cannot put all the pieces together with a more challenging full patient load. The preceptor experience requires integration of skills and knowledge beyond what is expected in other rotations, and this is therefore a higher level of practical assessment

Much of the research and references from this paper were from other disciplines and from academic failure (and this was not explicitly indicated in the paper). This would tend to indicate that more research is needed on this topic. Failure to fail may indeed exist, but further work is needed to establish its prevalence and nature. As yet there would seem little evidence it is a seriously widespread phenomena affecting patient safety.

We welcome further commentary and discussion below, and hope to see you all in December for cookies and another great Journal Club session! Check back here for details on the next workshop.

On January 27, 2014 Visiting Professor, Dr. Megan Davies, will conduct a workshop on New Educational Health History Resources with ideas on how you can use them to support teaching and learning. The workshop will center on “Mental Health History Resources for Nursing Education and Practice: A workshop on community-informed mental health curriculum.” The workshop will present a new set of web-based mental health curricula which employs historical documents and artistic expressions of current service users as tools for fostering informed and empathic practice. Participants will learn about the unique way in which the resources were created and have an opportunity to use and evaluate the resources. Click here for more information about History in Practice.

This event is co-hosted by the Consortium for Historical Inquiry in Nursing and Health Care and the  Elizabeth Kenny McCann Teaching Matters Scholar Award Initiative.

Location: UBC School of Nursing, Room T206
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm

The Elizabeth Kenny McCann Nursing Education Forum was a great success! Thank you to all who attended, facilitated, participated and presented at the forum. We were delighted to see 30 people there, including faculty, and graduate students. The following highlights guest speakers and group discussions from the forum.

Simon Bates, Senior Advisor and Academic Director of the Institute of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISoTL) spoke of expertise-centred classrooms. In an expertise-centred classroom, students are seen as being on a pathway from novice-to-expert. To evaluate progress along this expert path, Simon introduced concept inventories to evaluate to what extent students think like scientists, or like nurses, rather than how much information they know.

Kevin Eva, Acting Director of the Centre for Health Education Scholarship (CHES) shared the programs available at CHES for the School of Nursing faculty. The aim of CHES is to improve healthcare through improving healthcare education. They build capacity by offering mentoring programs, one time consultation or formal programs like a masters program in health professional education. CHES wants nursing to be more involved and Kevin encouraged faculty to call, email and drop by CHES.

Merilee Hughes the UBC School of Nursing Grant Facilitator, spoke of sources of funding for nursing education within the School of Nursing. The Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund (TLEF) was created to enhance student learning by supporting educational improvements. For more about TLEF please see their website here. Sources for educational project funding will also be available from the EKM fund in the coming year:

1. For presentation of papers/posters on nursing education
2. For small scale educational research projects.

Bernie Garrett, discussed EKM Scholarship of Teaching and Learning activities, and presented a Pecha Kucha (20 slides of 20 seconds each) on Nursing Education and Scholarshp as an exemplar for this type of presentation. Bernie’s presentation can be downloaded here: Education Pecha Kucha, and can be used for anyone who wants to attempt one in class. There is an automatic timer and animated timing slider built in.

Interactive Discussions 

The following subjects were discussed at the forum, with a mix of subjects from faculty, and the top three subjects selected for inclusion by students.

FACULTY-STUDENT COMMUNICATION

Attendees Were Asked:

1. What factors currently get in the way/impede good student faculty communication and interaction in the School?
2. What factors would improve faculty/student communication in the School?

Key Points for Action:

• Communication systems need to be streamlined
• Additional forms of communication are needed like social media, hallway boards, blogs or e-newsletters
• Need interaction outside the classroom to create greater trust between students and faculty as the hierarchical relationship between students and teachers may impede open communication, with a fear of punitive action as a result
• Townhall meetings currently should take place once per semester
• Informal meetings take place at Mahoney’s or a barbeque community event in the fall

THEORY PRACTICE GAP

Attendees Were Asked:

1. Do you think the Theory/Practice gap is still a significant issue in nursing education? If so what examples can you give of your experience of it?
2. Why do you think students still feel it is an issue?
3. Does the cause of this concern chiefly lie with the School, the practice areas or both?
4. What practical educational techniques and strategies can better align theoretical content with practice?
5. Identify and write down 4 key priorities for action the School should address to help resolve this issue over the coming year.

Key Points for Action:

• Greater organization and communication between course leaders and clinical instructors
• More use of case studies in the classroom

FLEXIBLE LEARNING

Attendees Were Asked:

1. What do you understand by the term “flexible learning” and do you think it is innovative approach or a recycling of older ideas?
2. What is meant by “the flipped classroom” and how could we use it in our courses?
3. What educational technologies and teaching strategies are needed to support flexible learning?
4. What skills are needed by teachers to implement flexible learning and are they the same as traditional teaching skills?
5. Identify and write down 4 key priorities for action the School should address to help explore the value of flexible learning  approaches in the coming year.

Key Points for Action:

• Increased support to improve faculty comfort with technology
• Increased professional development for innovative pedagogic ideas

LAB EDUCATION

Attendees Were Asked:

1. Is there still a role for clinical skills labs in todays undergraduate nursing curriculum (some countries have got rid of most of them and delegated skills teaching almost entirely into the practice area)?
2. What do you think are the main problems with our current skills labs and lab teaching and learning of clinical skills?
3. What is working in the labs, and what isn’t? Give examples.
4. Do you think patient simulation offers us an opportunity to improve students lab experiences, if so how? If not why not?
5. How can we use our simulation and patient simulator resources more effectively?
6. Identify and write down 4 key priorities for action the School should address to help improve students lab experiences in the coming year.

Key Points for Action:

• Purchase of more up to date equipment
• Stop reusing equipment whenever possible (although may impact lab fees – so maybe do a survey to ascertain student opinion )
• Provide a better space for labs

ADULT EDUCATION

Attendees Were Asked:

1. What do you understand the key principles of androgogic (adult focused – after Malcolm Knowles) and student-centered education are?
2. Is adult and student-centred learning compatible with professional training for clinical competence (can you think of any specific perceived problem areas)?
3. What strategies promote andragogic and student-centered learning best? Give examples.
4. What experiences do you think lead students to feel the approach to education at the SoN is not adult or student centered?
5. Identify and write down 4 key priorities for action the School could address that might help support a more androgogic and student-centred experience for students in the coming year.

 Key Points of Action:

• Better coordinated student-faculty communications
• Increased use of problem based learning in some courses

ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING

Attendees Were Asked:

1. What do you think are the best strategies to assess what students have learned fairly, and for them to be manageable for teachers? Give examples for a theory course.
2. Why grade at all, instead of using pass/fail criteria? What are the key arguments for continuing to use grade bands (A,B,C etc.) in our undergraduate program?
3. Is adult and student-centred learning compatible with professional training for clinical competence (can you think of any specific perceived problem areas)?
4. Is there an argument to return to graded practice for clinical performance (rather than competency-based assessment)?
5. Identify and write down 4 suggested guidelines you think the School should adopt for teachers to use in creating practical and fair assessment strategies for Level 300/400 courses.

Key Points of Action:

• Establish a policy around How much time can you expect students to spend on assignments and faculty on grading
• Faculty encouraged to give assignments with choice of methods (e.g. do either A, B, or C – all worth 30%)

—————————–

The key points from these discussions have been passed on to the Undergraduate and Graduate Program Committees at the School of Nursing, to help inform and improve our future practice.

THANK YOU again to everyone who participated in the 2013 Elizabeth Kenny McCann Educational Forum. The forum highlighted some current issues regarding educational scholarship, identified ways to improve practice and promote student centred learning.

This month we had a small but engaged group for a workshop focused on the advanced features available on Poll Everywhere. In particular we explored two functions: the use of clickable images and interactive competitions in the classroom.

Image Slides

Clickable images are an interesting new function that allows instructors to upload pictures from the Internet and use them within interactive polls. Instructors are able to choose settings to allow students to click on the image and select outlined boxes on the screen to choose specific answers. For example, if students were shown a map of Canada and asked to choose which province or territory they think has the highest incidence of breast cancer, boxed choices around each of the provinces would be appropriate. Another option for instructors is to give students the ability to click anywhere on the picture to answer freely. This might be appropriate in an anatomy review. For example. an instructor can ask students to click on a picture of an adrenal gland where they think the adrenal medulla is located.

Competitions/Quizzes

To form a competition within the class, students can be split into groups or teams. Some friendly competition can infuse fun into the class. Rewards (such as chocolate) can make this more fun, and the friendly competition encourage students to come to class prepared and stay engaged.

1. The instructor should group the slides they want to include in the competition/quiz into a group on Poll Everywhere. The question slides must be MCQ format and must have the “graded” option selected. The correct answer must also be selected on the question.

2. The first slide is used as a “Team selection” slide to get students to register for a specific team (I.e. Select Team, A, B, C or D). Instructors can split students up by clinical groups or by the location they are sitting within the lecture theatre.

3. The instructor then opens the first question slide up, asks the students to answer it to the best of their ability and then either immediately shows them the answer (or can keep the answers hidden until the competition is complete – but this option is probably best only used in small groups with limited questions to prevent frustration).

4. Finally when the competition is over the instructor selects the “Report” tab and then creates a Segmented Report which is grouped by the competition group (using the “all slides” option. Then the instructor selects segmented by the “Team” slide (just typing in the word team will find the slide for you,  if you used this word in its title). The winning team is then displayed.

Forthcoming Journal Club 

Please join us in two weeks for a controversial discussion with students and faculty members at our journal club. Our topic on November 18^th will be failure to fail in nursing programs. Click here for the article and please RSVP to Allana if you can attend.

Hello all,

This month’s discussion will take place on Monday, November 18th from 12:00pm-12:50pm in room T182 at the UBC School of Nursing. November’s topic focuses on the exploration of the issue of failure to fail in a nursing program. Our chosen article for discussion will be:

Exploring the Issue of Failure to Fail in a Nursing Program
Sylvie Larocque¹ / Florence Loyce Luhanga^2
1Laurentian University of Sudbury, Greater Sudbury, ON P3E 2C6, Canada
²University of Regina, Regina, SK S4S 0A2, Canada
International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship. Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages 1–8, ISSN (Online) 1548-923X, ISSN (Print) 2194-5772, DOI: 10.1515/ijnes-2012-0037, June 2013

It can be downloaded here.

As usual, please bring your own lunch and coffee and we will provide a delicious treat. Please RSVP to Allana to confirm your attendance.

We look forward to seeing you for a great discussion!

Our next workshop will take place on Monday November 4th at 12:00pm. We will be looking at interactive teaching using advanced features in Poll Everywhere. These interactive features are great to use during team-based events, quizzes or competitions. This workshop is open to all faculty and instructors. If you would like to attend, please RSVP to Allana. See you tomorrow!

Blackboard Collaborate

As flexible learning becomes increasingly sought after as a strategy for teaching and learning, synchronous teaching applications such as Blackboard Collaborate may be employed more here at UBC more frequently. Collaborate is software that creates an online live classroom that enables instructors to hold online classes, meetings, presentations and discussions. In this month’s EKM Workshop we looked at Blackboard Collaborate and the opportunities for its use in the School of Nursing.

Opportunities 

Collaborate is an interactive web teaching tool that can be used in a variety of ways. As a synchronous system,  it offers a live Web-based classroom to allow direct live interaction  with students, and presentation using PowerPoint slides, the web, or multimedia. This live classroom function offers a resource for graduate level classes where we have some students in Vancouver and some students remotely. It supports both audio and videoconferencing. For classes of greater than 20 or so people the bandwidth may be limited for video for all participants,  requiring only audio to be employed for the audience, or use of video sequentially.

During a web conference, the video automatically swaps to the person who is talking. Applications such as Word documents and spreadsheets can be shared through the Collaborate window. There is also a limited polling system within Collaborate, but you can use PollEverywhere as an external web-based poll and just send students to vote at the correct time, and then display the reluts. Websites that are used through Collaborate are fully functional, and users can communicate with audio or by typing messages.

There are a few simple functions and principles that keep online learning such as this smooth and enjoyable for the whole class. For example, use of a microphone on the students computer is recommended for a better experience, and there is a “raise your hand” button so that everyone doesn’t speak at once. Students should also be reminded of how to be respectful in the online classroom and prepared. For example, students should test their connection in advance to avoid issues on the day, and keep their microphone muted if they are somewhere loud, or are likely to disturb the class with other local noise. They should also dedicate time to the class so they are not interrupted by family members, pets, or friends when online. A few simple group-negotiated ground rules usually help here.

Faculty noted that Collaborate could be very useful for recording and storing guest lectures that might be useful for future classes, as the sessions presented are easily recorded  and saved for online access. For example, it is challenging for some guest lecturers to give presentations to students every six weeks in the undergraduate rotation schedule. The guest lecturer could record a presentation once and students could access this presentation online every rotation for that cohort. If the guest lecturer is able to deliver a presentation as a synchronous system, the instructor can give them access to add their own Powerpoints and control the Powerpoints during the presentation.

Instructors can also use the Collaborate system for online office hours/tutorials. For students or faculty who cannot easily come to to campus, or where it is not feasible, online office hours are an effective way to meet students’ needs to discuss topics with an instructor outside of class.

Faculty could also create a “class” for committees or other meetings to reduce the need for physically meeting on campus. This would also be beneficial for project meetings that take place with collaborators from other universities or agencies.

Limitations

Setting up the classroom is not quite as intuitive as we would wish, but with a little practice is simple enough. Support and tutorials are available from UBC elearning and here, and from Blackboard here. If faculty have any issues with the system, they can email  CTLT for support, or email Bernie to take up an issue at the Faculty Connect Advisory Committee.

One limitation is that the system here at UBC is only open to prepare an hour before the scheduled time of the class. If an instructor would like to prepare hours or days beforehand they have to open the session and keep it open to students until the time of commencement. Sending a message to students to inform them that although the Collaborate Classroom is open they only need to sign in for the scheduled class at the specific time avoids confusion. Otherwise instructors can be organized and prepared with Powerpoint presentations, videos, websites, etc ready to be accessed on their desktops. Unfortunately, Collaborate just takes a snapshot of each Powerpoint slide. Therefore if there is a video or animation embedded in the Powerpoint, it will not show. Videos should be accessible via the web or in Connect, and simply launched with a link by the instructor at the correct time..

Blackboard Collaborate works on Macs or PCs and uses JAVA , so requires that JAVA be installed on the users computer. This is freely available and most users have it already installed (Collaborate checks and advises where to download it if it is not present on start up). However, it can inconvenience users when using multiple computers, or for those with limited access rights to install software.

Overall, the Blackboard Collaborate application in Connect is an incredibly valuable resource for teachers, and offers lots of opportunities for creativity. The contribution it can make to flexible learning through web conferencing alone is valuable enough to make taking the time to learn the system worthwhile. Furthermore, time and energy saving applications like online office hours or online group meetings can increase efficiency and flexibility. Give it a try or sign up for a Blackboard introductory webinar or view a demo to get started!