Abstract
BackgroundThere are growing reasons to use both information and communication functions of learning technologies as part of clinical education, but the literature offers few accounts of such implementations or evaluations of their impact. This paper details the process of implementing a blend of online and face-to-face learning and teaching in a clinical education setting and it reports on the educational impact of this innovation.MethodsThis study designed an online community to complement a series of on-site workshops and monitored its use over a semester. Quantitative and qualitative data recording 43 final-year medical students' and 13 clinical educators' experiences with this blended approach to learning and teaching were analysed using access, adoption and quality criteria as measures of impact.ResultsThe introduction of the online community produced high student ratings of the quality of learning and teaching and it produced student academic results that were equivalent to those from face-to-face-only learning and teaching. Staff had mixed views about using blended learning.ConclusionsProjects such as this take skilled effort and time. Strong incentives are required to encourage clinical staff and students to use a new mode of communication. A more synchronous or multi-channel communication feedback system might stimulate increased adoption. Cultural change in clinical teaching is also required before clinical education can benefit more widely from initiatives such as this.
Highlights
There are growing reasons to use both information and communication functions of learning technologies as part of clinical education, but the literature offers few accounts of such implementations or evaluations of their impact
The provision of e-learning as part of clinical education is a growing imperative, and is underscored by curriculum accrediting bodies with requirements such as, “Students must be ready to use technology and communications tools as they are used in practice and flexible enough to incorporate changing technology” [1]
There are few reports of student and staff engagement when face-to-face teaching is blended with e-learning in clinical education, and even fewer reports of educational outcomes from such innovations
Summary
There are growing reasons to use both information and communication functions of learning technologies as part of clinical education, but the literature offers few accounts of such implementations or evaluations of their impact. This paper details the process of implementing a blend of online and face-to-face learning and teaching in a clinical education setting and it reports on the educational impact of this innovation. E-learning may offer advantages in clinical education, such as overcoming physical limitations of time and space, supporting instructional methods that are hard to achieve using textbooks and reaching a larger number of students without increasing resource requirements. It is not without drawbacks, for instance initial set-up costs, lack of engagement compared to face-to-face interaction and technical problems that can spoil users’ overall learning and teaching experiences as Cook has noted [2]. E-learning may be most effective in clinical education if it is used not merely to transmit content from teacher to learner but rather to support flexible, engaging and learner-centred teaching, to encourage interaction among students and staff and to enable them to collaborate and communicate asynchronously, according to Ellaway and Masters [5]
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