An Adaptive Blended Learning Health Education Model for Families of a Parent with Serious Medical Problems

Abstract

We propose a blended learning model that will provide evidence-based medical education and psychological support for families in which a parent has a serious medical condition. The twelve leading causes of death in the United States include diseases and injuries with pathophysiological and psychological facets most adults and the vast majority of children do not understand. An intriguing problem in blended learning emerged as we studied how to create a blended learning environment that could provide families with evidence-based support for dealing with medical problems. The model we developed is based on deep knowledge adaptive learning engines to assess both parents’ and children’s prior knowledge and accuracy of such knowledge as well as each learner’s readiness to engage in learning, and then to create teaching-learning-assessment environments tailored to the needs and prior knowledge of each family member.