Activity Five; Design & describe flexible learning strategies in my context

For this activity I have focused on one aspect of one of the papers I am involved with within the BM programme (a blended learning programme delivered in a flexible manner) -'Midwifery practice skills'. Myself and several other lecturers are each a Student Practice Facilitator for a small tutorial (SPF) group of first year students. My group consists of eight students whom I meet with for four hours each week of the acaedemic year. One of the functions of the SPF group is the opportunity to get hands on experience with the practice skills covered in the course. There are 26 practice skills each of which has an accompanying skills sheet, the signing off of which indicates the student has demonstrated competency in the particular skill. The skills sheets are expected to be all signed off (by either the SPF or by a midwife during a clinical placement) by the end of the year. The students' knowlege & understanding of these practical skills are supported by online learning modules (some of which use UTube videos and a couple which use videos of a particular skill which the course coordinator has produced) plus experience gained on clinical placements.

The methods I currently use to aid the skill acquisition are; a discussion around the information the students have read about the skill in their online modules and texts, discussing any experiences they have had in seeing these skills demonstrated in practice, talking through the skills sheet, demonstrating the skill, then depending on the skill itself providing the opportunity for students to -either as a big group or by getting into either smaller groups or together watch a group of two or three students roleplay the skill (the students' can roleplay the woman, the student midwife or be the 'prompter' checking the correct procedure is followed by following the roleplay ensuring it aleigns with the skills sheet) -practice the skill.

At the end of the year the students' undertake a Midwifery Practice Skills Assessment (MPSA) based around the skills learned throughout the year, 10 of which are embedded into five practice scenarios for the assessment. Each student is randomly assigned to one scenario (testing two skills) for the assessment which assesses each of the four learning outcomes for this paper as written in the course descripter. The students are aware of the five pairs of skills they may be assessed apon and have the opportunity to practice these within their SPF groups towards the end of the year.

All the SPF groups run slightly differently and despite best efforts to check SPFs are demonstating the skills in the same way, individual discrepencies do occur. This is particularly apparent when some skills are demonstrated at block courses and also we hear this anecdotally from conversations the students from different SPF groups have with each other. While the discrepencies do not deter from best practice techniques, they do cause the students' some grief as they are trying so hard to learn the correct way to demonstrate the skill.

There has been some discussion within the School of Midwifery around moving to having the MPSAs videoed by students and then sent in to Lecturers for assessing. Initially I was resistant to this idea. On reflection, I realised this was based around my own liking for how the assessment is undertaken currently (it suits me but does it suit the students?) and my lack of confidence in utilising the IT technology that this move would involve. I began to think of other possibilities for the use of videos rather than just assessing students in this way staying focused on my student group and what would help them as learners, rather than my own issues. While looking at Holden's Instructional Media & Pedagogical Considerations (2011) and the Gallery of Strategies on the Australian Flexible framework website (2011) on e-learning, & the JISC infonet (2011) resources I started to think about the possibilities of creating a series of short videos demonstrating each of the 26 skills for students to look at. This has became the focus of my Blended learning strategy.

Advantages of having the videos include
-consistency in best practice showing how we wish the students to be able to demonstrate each skill
-the students could watch them over and over in their own time stopping and starting them as necessary to gain a greater understanding of how to perform the skill
-it would cut down on some of the time I spend with individual student's during the SPF group going through particular skills with them while the rest of the group starts chatting and going off onto tangents unrelated to the task at hand
-it would free up some SPF time which could be devoted to other aspects of my facilitation role while remaining learner centred
-the videos could be resources used school wide
-they could be produced by students as well as lecturers.

An additional advantage is the ability to use the videos in class, on PPTs and on podcasts(though I am not sure what a podcast is -I think it's a short video?). From what I have read, it is not difficult to transfer the video from a digital video camera to the computer for editing utilising specific movie editing software programmes such as Movie maker. I think there is potential for this resource to be utilised in this way to enhance student learning.

References:
Australian Flexible framework site. (2011). Gallery of Strategies. Retrieved from http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au/gallery/index/htm

Holden, J. (2011). Developing a blended learning strategy: Instructional media and pedagogical considerations. Retreived from http://www.slideshare.net/jholden/developing-a-blended-learning-strategy-instructional-media-pedagogical-considerations

University of Ulster. (2011). JISC Case study 1: Supporting student transistion through reflective video sharing. Retrieved from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/digiemerge

Bibliography:
Heinze, A., & Procter, C. (2004). Reflections on the use of blended learning. Retrieved from http://www.ece.salford.ac.uk/proceedings/papers/ah_04.rtf