Narrative learning in the virtual landscape: a model from a baccalaureate program.

Abstract

This article explores the implications of presenting a medical humanities curriculum in a virtual format, using as a model a fully online humanities course taught in both traditional 15-week and accelerated 5-week formats. The course explores narrative competency and allows baccalaureate students to deepen their practical skills with increased awareness of narrative constructions. The online course design fosters growth in many areas of communication that have otherwise been absent in face-to-face courses taught by this educator. In the virtual format, students showed increased investment in the course content and an openness to communicating their experience as well as to critically challenging their colleagues on narrative-based dilemmas, such as those centered around building empathy, remaining nonjudgmental when challenged with ethical dilemmas, and awareness of signs within themselves of disengagement and burnout.