Well yes there has been a little gap since I wrote last. Four months is a little gap in the whole scheme of things I tell myself! I have been tied up with my parts in the delivery of the Bachelor of Midwifery (BM) degree to our students. It has been a busy year so far delivering this model flexibly through a process of blended delivery through my homebase in Whitby. I am determined to complete this paper however -not completing is not an option for me, hence being back here tonight. I am looking forward to having the time to engage with it again.
I had a discussion with Suzanne today. We talked about what flexible learning meant to each of us. I do believe we are living it on a daily basis. Being flexible is not only an attribute we use every day in our work with OP but also everyday in supporting the women in our caseload whom we are the Lead Maternity Carer's for. Working in midwifery by it's nature involves a great degree of flexibility, so I believe this concept is well entrenched in midwifery practice.
Suzanne sees flexible learning as being the ability the students have for being able to pick and choose how and when they are going to learn. In the BM programme there is a lot of room to be able to do this, enabling students to work their study around their home committments. She also believes it is important to recognise different learning styles and to present different ways of learning so that everyone has the opportunity to learn in the style which best suits them. This applies to either face to face or on line learning through modules or elluminates. Using a variety of styles enables connection with the information presented by each student. Suzanne pointed out an excellent example of flexible learning which is all too current...when the Feb 22 Christchurch earthquake occured, our midwifery programme (a collaboration between CPIT and OP) could be kept going because of the nature of how it is delivered -flexible learning via blended delivery. It could continue being delivered despite the main Christchurch infrastructure being nonfunctional and there being no classroom availablity. In fact the programme was run from a lecturer's home utilising available halls for contact time with the students until CPIT was considered safe to return too. Consequently the disruption to student learning was minimal compared to other schools which were unable to function for several weeks. That is a great example of flexible learning as a lived experience! Thanks Suzanne. Chris
Christine this is a really good description of how flexible learning is working in the Bachelor of midwifery. Also, as you say the profession has to be flexible to accommodate womens' needs so the need for practising flexibility in the BM is not likely to come as a complete surprise.
ReplyDeleteThe description of your interview with Suzanne illustrates several areas where flexible learning is beneficial. For example, how access to learning is linked to students' learning preferences, and how FL strategies can be used to overcome barriers such as natural disasters. Online learning can come in handy all right.
I wonder if it might be wise to have some lessons prepared for delivery via radio in the future should the electricity go down? It happened here last night in Dunedin but is now back on. Many developing countries have to use radio or cellphone options for learning as access to the Internet is impossible - so much we can take for granted, but I believe there are communities dotted around NZ who don't have electricity, nor the means to pay for a satellite dish for Internet.
Do you think there are any communities which might access the midwifery programme if options to online learning were provided?