We know our trainees are busy not only saving lives but also having lives of their own. So it’s important to us that our education fits into those busy schedules. Our programme uses the blended learning method where delivery of educational content happens both online and face to face.
Trainees access pre-recorded video lectures independently, in their own time. We call these sessions FLEXIBLE because trainees have the flexibility of watching them where and when they so choose. They then participate in live sessions, known as SCHEDULED. For scheduled sessions our classroom can be accessed either face-to-face or remotely, but it occurs at a set, scheduled time. Trainees coming in remotely use a special online programme which enables live interaction with everyone in the classroom.
Kids’ Health Matters takes this blended learning one step further and uses the innovative ‘flipped classroom’ model. In a flipped classroom, the student is introduced to learning material before class. Class time is then dedicated to diving deeper into the topic through discussion and activities.
Our trainees choose when they learn the foundations of each topic through video lectures, up-to-date-publications, Free Open-Access Meducation (FOAM) blogs, and quizzes prior to the classroom session. This is the Flexible.
The Scheduled session then builds on this prior knowledge by applying it to case studies overseen by experienced clinicians. These case studies allow trainees to bring together the best of their clinical experience, their new knowledge and the benefit of working as a group to promote a deeper understanding.
This delivery model and the experience of blended learning was very positively received by the ACP trainees in Karen Shawhan’s ‘Evaluation of Advanced Paediatric and Neonatal Practice Workforce Development Phase 1 – June 2018′.
We began to flip our classroom and implement the webcasting of Scheduled sessions in 2016. Using the online video platform company Panopto, we began to record all of our teaching sessions and the wealth of video recorded knowledge grew. (See our blog post with Panopto here) What started as a small resource being used for one MSc APNP programme, now has over 1500 sessions and 50,000 views. It felt only right to give this platform a name – Advance. It is a place health professionals can go to advance their knowledge, advance their careers and advance the care provided to women and children.
There is so much potential for online learning and the flipped classroom in healthcare education and training. This model can be used for other ACPs and health professionals at any level of learning. Advance is a private site but we want the resource to be as open as possible. Sessions within the platform can be shared with users from various professions and programmes at the discretion of the programmes leads and the content creator. We currently use Advance with several projects within advanced practice and medical teaching. Read more about Advance.
