Medical Education Blog

An autistic woman has produced a video about her language. She describes the video this way. “The first part is in my "native language," and then the second part provides a translation, or at least an explanation. This is not a look-at-the-autie gawking freakshow as much as it is a statement about what gets considered thought, intelligence, personhood, language, and communication, and what does not.” Click the video twice to start playing.

To see a variety of her videos, see http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=silentmiaow

Posted by Deirdre at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone recently suggested using Podomatic to create podcasts (audio recordings broadcast online). To see an example, go to my site and click on the play button after the flower image.
http://medicaleducation.podomatic.com/

The transcript for this recording is available at http://blogs.usask.ca/medical_education/archive/2006/04/teaching_the_hi.html

Posted by Deirdre at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I spend the weekend setting up a wiki about Technology Tools that are useful for educators. Check it out at http://wiki.usask.ca/db/index.php/Main_Page

Wikis are useful for keeping online class resources easily available to students, but their most powerful use is in collaborative projects because team members can share ideas/research, and edit team projects without having to meet face to face.

A wiki available to an entire class is a great way for faculty to increase their own knowledge of online resources as students add their research to the site.

Posted by Deirdre at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here is a 7 minute video about how to improve your presentation skills. Click on the image twice.

Posted by Deirdre at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are you mentoring premedical students? Check out the new Wiki http://more.studentdoctor.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page. The information is primarily American but this is a great opportunity to add Saskatchewan to the information since Wiki's are meant to be edited.

Posted by Deirdre at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I recently attended a six day, online conference put on by the University of Manitoba. There were 1,000 participants including people from Tashkent, Australia and Brazil. Most of the discussion was through a Moodle (an online discussion forum) archived here http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=9 Everyday there was a live presentation on Elluminate (PowerPoint, voice, chat). About 200 people participated in the Elluminate sessions.

One of the most interesting aspects though was the opportunity for ongoing discussion. When the online conference started, I had just returned from a weeklong medical school conference in the US. I had come back frustrated by the lack of connection I felt at that conference. Workshops provided very few opportunities for discussing what had been presented. After the workshops, I tried to engage people about the conference, but found myself in social chit chat about the weather and politics.

At the online conference, I learned so much on so many different levels from new technology tools to new theories about how learning occurs to assorted ha-ha moments. People happily provided links, virtual tours and criticism about ideas they didn't agree with.

The trip to the US cost my university $2,000, while the online conference cost the university $0.

Posted by Deirdre at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A little glimpse of what medical education might look like in the future brought to us by Second Life, a virtual world where you can listen to bands, play bingo, join an interest group or... take classes from 26 universities that have developed innovative online courses. This is a video of a clinic in Second Life created by Jeremy Kemp. He describes his project as a "walkthrough machinima of a heart sounds exam (ausculatation) simulation with heart sounds and assessment." Click twice to play. Sound will start once you enter the clinic.

Posted by Deirdre at 03:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is a lot of discussion about what mentoring in medical education looks like but very little discussion about what mentoring is not. Part of the confusion is because people may have multiple roles in a mentee’s life and it is difficult to understand the boundaries between those roles. In each of the situations listed below, the mentor may also be a supervisor, expert or friend.

A mentor is not a supervisor
A supervisor is responsible for evaluating and career decision-making. Roles that are not consistent with the trust and risk taking required in a mentoring relationship. A supervisor has an organizationally determined job description that may be incompatible with the mutual negotiation required when mentoring.

A mentor is not an expert
An expert is someone who offers his or her expertise in a one-way, predetermined flow of knowledge. Experts are called in to analyze, evaluate and solve problems. Mentors assist the mentee in identifying, evaluating and solving problems that are the mentee’s responsibility

A mentor is not a friend
Friends offer a social and supportive system that centre on enjoyment and support in times of personal questioning. A mentor is primarily a professional support person who facilitates new learning experiences and assists with professional connections.

Posted by Deirdre at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The American Association of Medical College's newsletter has an article on mentoring http://www.aamc.org/members/facultydev/facultyvitae/fall06/feature.htm

"Studies of mentoring in the health professions find real benefits for faculty at all career stages. Compared to those without mentors, faculty with mentors demonstrate higher levels of the following success factors:

-Teaching effectiveness, evidenced by declines in teaching anxiety and improved student ratings of teaching effectiveness
-Research productivity
-Professional socialization and interactions with colleagues
-Salary levels; and satisfaction with salary and promotion"

Posted by Deirdre at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a video about the advantages of digital text. You need to click on it twice if using an IBM.

Posted by Deirdre at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Critical Friends Group is a professional learning community consisting of approximately 8-12 educators who come together voluntarily at least once a month for about 2 hours. Group members are committed to improving their practice through collaborative learning. For more information see http://www.nsrfharmony.org/faq.html#1

This seems like a great way to introduce new and innovative teaching methods to the College of Medicine

Posted by Deirdre at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How we teach is mediated by our own preferences and experiences of learning. Those experiences were often influenced by theories of learning popular in the educational institutions at the time we attended. Becoming a medical educator means thinking about these theories and how they could change the way we teach.

The aspects of learning obscured by one theory are illuminated in another -M. Driscoll

1. Behaviorism (1890’s)
• a direct result of industrial age’s need for workers
• theorists Watson, Thorndike, Skinner
• people are motivated to learn by a stimulus system of rewards and punishments
• goal is behavioural change (shape the student to requirements of labour)
• hierarchal/regimental in structure
• instructor is the transmitter of knowledge


2. Cognitivism (1950’s)
• a direct result of early research about rapid learning in military environments combined with research into cognitive processing
• theorists Piaget, Wilson, Ryder, Gagne
• based on a process of systematic chunks of information, process, encode, product (information processing model)
• focus is a change in thinking (Gagne’s Events of Instruction)
• people are motivated to learn by attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction
• programmed learning modules
• instructor involves learners to increase memory storage


3. Constructivism (1970’s)
• a direct result of increasing levels of education and research in early child development
• theorists Vygotsky, von Glasersfeld, Bruner, Jonassen
• people are motivated to learn by the context in which they interact (subculture, discipline, hobby)
• problem-based learning, inquiry learning
• the instructor should try and encourage students to discover principles for themselves
• the instructor and student should engage in an active dialog (i.e., Socratic learning).


4. Constructionism (1990’s)
• people learn through making things with other people
• theorists Papert, Shank
• creation leads to deeper level of understanding than instruction
• technology should actively engage students in creating
• people are motivated to learn by a desire to complete project-based learning
• instructor is a co-learner


5. Connectivism (2000)
   • a direct result of exponentially increasing complex technological communications
   • theorists Siemens, Downes
   • students exist in multiple networks/communities of learning (ex. Blogs)
   • people are motivated by their need to make sense of multiple, frequently contradictory, nonlinear resources
   • learning is the rapid bringing together of dispersed information through neural activity
   • instructor is a network facilitator

Posted by Deirdre at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)