Reusable Learning Objects in Health Care Education

This chapter will review the definition, development and characteristics of reusable learning objects (RLOs) and outline examples of how these resources are meeting the challenges of interprofessional learning. It will discuss the ways in which pedagogy is developed and expressed within RLOs and how this may impact on interprofessionality.

Leadership Online

A study investigating the effectiveness of a curriculum innovation involving students as online facilitators of interprofessional learning (IPL) provides a focus for this chapter. The research aim was to investigate whether Year 3 health and social care students were effective in facilitating online discussion forums contributing to the IPL of their counterparts in Years 1 and 2. Findings suggest that they were equally as effective as academic staff while offering some additional benefits. The account provides evidence of a successful online interprofessional initiative involving students promoting IPL.

Critical Diversity Education to Promote Interprofessional Understanding

The chapter begins with an overview of the current momentum toward interprofessional education and practice, citing specific trends in Canada as reflections of a global emerging consciousness. Initiatives undertaken at Dalhousie University are discussed in setting the context for this pilot study. Next, the pedagogy of critical diversity education is introduced and explained, with particular relevance for interprofessional education and practice. Comparison of face-to-face and online delivery of an interprofessional module based upon critical diversity education principles is then detailed, including research design and findings. The chapter concludes with a discussion of implications from this study.

A Threefold Framework for Relating to Innovations and Technology in Education

In recent years computer technology has developed quickly as have cultural practices in society. However, educational practices with technology have not yet reached the point where educators and learners benefit optimally from innovative technology. In interprofessional education (IPE) there are examples of technology use that forms an integral part of education. To improve IPE there is a need for reflection on how today and tomorrow’s technology can contribute. As technology and its practices melt together this reflection is however, not easily done. A framework intended as a starting point for such reflection is presented in the following chapter which involves learning from, with and about technology. To assess the benefit of technology for learning we need research on technology integration, on outcomes from learning with technology as well as processes of learning in conjunction with technology. This research has to use different perspectives involving various scientific traditions.

A Case Study Exploring a Multi-Disciplinary Collaborative Initiative to Use E-Learning to Meet the Professional Learning Needs of Health and Social Care Practitioners

This chapter explores the early development stages of an interactive interprofessional online learning package that updates and supports health and social care professionals who mentor students in practice settings. The package aims to present content that is relevant and useful to fourteen different disciplines accessing it. A benefit of online content is that learning can be undertaken when convenient for the mentor, 24 hours a day-7 days a week, with the facility to stop and restart as needed. Additionally the package is constructed so both individuals and groups can use it; this both meets a regulatory body’s requirement for having a face-to-face update every year, and provides support for interprofessional learning between mentors from different disciplines.

The Utility of Disruptive Technologies in Interprofessional Education

This chapter will consider the educational benefits and challenges of introducing e-learning objects within an interprofessional curriculum. It examines the tensions of curriculum development as content or process-driven in the context of facilitating interactive learning using blended learning strategies which combine online and face-to-face interactions. This chapter draws upon an evaluation of student and staff experiences of an interprofessional curriculum incorporating health and social care users and carers as case scenarios in a web-based simulated community, Wessex Bay, and highlights congruent and disruptive factors in negotiating transformative learning and cultural change. It draws conclusions and recommendations for informing practice in interprofessional education and suggests directions for future research to inform the substance (interprofessional case scenarios) and spaces (discussion boards, chat rooms, classroom) for collaborative learning in an interprofessional curriculum.

Designing for Enquiry

This chapter sets the imperative for service user and carer involvement in the processes of educating mental health professionals. It begins by outlining some of the traditional barriers higher education institutions have faced in encouraging service user and carer involvement in teaching and learning. It then outlines the properties that Web 2.0 tools and processes can offer to overcome some of these obstacles. In developing effective interdisciplinary blended learning opportunities it is argued that the use of Web 2.0 alone will not ensure effective learning outcomes. The Community of Inquiry model is introduced to explore how the processes of enquiry, collaboration and communication can be embedded into the heart of interdisciplinary blended learning designs.

Involving Service Users Through Digital Means to Enhance Interprofessional Learning

This chapter will provide guidance for educational practice founded on theory and on the experience of involving service users and carers in student education. Whilst this is an accepted philosophy and practice it is not necessarily easy to achieve. There are numerous ways of including service users in education but the era of digital media has added a means of bringing the service user into the learning environment and of overcoming many of the barriers to their effective engagement. The Centre for Interprofessional e-learning (CIPeL) has been engaged in developing e-learning materials which address some of the barriers to interprofessional education and issues related to user involvement in education. This experience is outlined and some examples from practice are given.

Analysis and Description of Education Employing Technological Platforms

This chapter aims to provide a background to two aspects that figure prominently in later chapters of this book, by introducing many of the concepts relevant to them, and establishing a consistent terminology with which to describe them. The first of these aspects is that of the technological platforms employed. Technological platforms are used in a range of different activities within interprofessional learning. These activities include accessing learning objects, conducting situative learning in order to establish jointly developed knowledge, providing an opportunity to develop an online professional identity and creating links within a community. In this discussion, one particular platform is particularly referred to throughout. That is the immersive virtual worlds (IVW), also referred to as multi-user virtual environments (MUVE). This is to provide more information for those unfamiliar with immersive virtual worlds and because these particular environments form the basis of many of the case studies described in the remainder of the book. Experience of virtual worlds also indicates that they may have special relevance to interprofessional education, particularly around notions of ‘presence’, ‘embodiment’ and ‘identity’, and these are concepts that have been given a fuller explanation for this reason. Secondly, a range of different theoretical frameworks for understanding the education activities and interactions that take place using these technological platforms are introduced and discussed.

Thinking Outside the Box

Education is moving out of the classroom and into the real world, driven by both emerging Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and new economic models. The boom of the web and social networking has revolutionised global communication and collaboration. A DIY culture and industries are emerging because of this. Mobile devices connecting to the digital superhighways are merging the real and digital worlds. This, coupled with the falling cost of the hardware as well as the free software movement may soon place a new model of education into the grasp of almost everyone. A model where education is no longer the process of being fed information, but rather a process of enquiry, exploration, discovery, expression and re-interpretation of the world around us on our own terms. The potential for learning from and with each other at this moment in time is unprecedented.