Patient safety in health care professional educational curricula: examining the learning experience

This study has investigated the formal and informal ways pre-registration students from four healthcare professions learn about patient safety in order to become safe practitioners. The study aims to understand some of the issues which impact upon teaching, learning and practising patient safety in academic, organisational and practice „knowledge? contexts. In Stage 1 we used a convenience sample of 13 educational providers across England and Scotland linked with five universities running traditional and innovative courses for doctors, nurses, pharmacists and physiotherapists. We gathered examples of existing curriculum documents for detailed analysis, and interviewed course directors and similar informants. In Stage 2 we undertook 8 case studies to develop an in-depth investigation of learning and practice by students and newly qualified practitioners in universities and practice settings in relation to patient safety. Data were gathered to explore the planning and implementation of patient safety curricula; the safety culture of the places where learning and working take place; the student teacher interface; and the influence of role models and organisational culture on practice. Data from observation, focus groups and interviews were transcribed and coded independently by more than one of the research team. Analysis was iterative and ongoing throughout the study. NHS policy is being taken seriously by course leaders, and Patient Safety material is being incorporated into both formal and informal curricula. Patient safety in the curriculum is largely implicit rather than explicit. All students very much value the practice context for learning about patient safety. However, resource issues, peer pressure and client factors can influence safe practice. Variations exist in students? experience, in approach between university tutors, different placement locations – the experience each offers – and the quality of the supervision available. Relationships with the mentor or clinical educator are vital to student learning. The role model offered and the relationship established affects how confident students feel to challenge unsafe practice in others. Clinicians are conscious of the tension between their responsibilities as clinicians (keeping patients safe), and as educators (allowing students to learn under supervision). There are some apparent gaps in curricular content where relevant evidence already exists – these include the epidemiology of adverse events and error, root cause analysis and quality assessment. Reference to the organisational context is often absent from course content and exposure limited. For example, incident reporting is not being incorporated to any great extent in undergraduate curricula. Newly qualified staff were aware of the need to be seen to practice in an evidence based way, and, for some at least, the need to modify „the standard? way of doing things to do „what?s best for the patient?. A number of recommendations have been made, some generic and others specific to individual professions. Regulators? expectations of courses in relation to patient 9 safety education should be explicit and regularly reviewed. Educators in all disciplines need to be effective role models who are clear about how to help students to learn about patient safety. All courses should be able to highlight a vertical integrated thread of teaching and learning related to patient safety in their curricula. This should be clear to staff and students. Assessment for this element should also be identifiable as assessment remains important in driving learning. All students need to be enabled to constructively challenge unsafe or non-standard practice. Encounters with patients and learning about their experiences and concerns are helpful in consolidating learning. Further innovative approaches should be developed to make patient safety issues 'real' for students

How to design for persistence and retention in MOOCs?

Design of educational interventions is typically carried out following a design cycle involving phases of investigation, conceptualization, prototyping, implementation, execution and evaluation. This cycle can be applied at different levels of granularity e.g. learning activity, module, course or programme. In this paper we consider an aspect of learner behavior that can be critical to the success of many MOOCs i.e. their persistence to study, and the related theme of learner retention. We reflect on the impact that consideration of these can have on design decisions at different stages in the design cycle with the aim of en-hancing MOOC design in relation to learner persistence and retention, with particular attention to the European context

Identity Development in Pre-Service Teachers Who Are Explainers in a Science Center: Dialectically Developing Theory and Praxis

This dissertation investigates how teaching in a hands-on science center contributes to re/shaping one\u27s teaching identity. Situated at the New York Hall of Science (NYHS) in Queens, New York, my research approach is to conduct a critical ethnography where the focus is on improving the teaching and learning of science for all involved. In particular, Explainers, floor staff at NYHS, who are studying to be science teachers, are invited to become co-researchers with me. Written as a manuscript style, this dissertation consists of six chapters. Each chapter foregrounds certain events and phenomena, and theory and method are woven in to theorize identity construction. Grounded in cultural sociology, the frameworks of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), and the sociology of emotions, illuminate key understandings about the construction of teaching identity. Multiple data sources including field notes, transcribed audio and videotapes, and cogenerative dialogues are used. I employ a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to data analysis. This research has salient implications for museum-university partnerships, and training for museum floor staff and has the potential to inform policy-making for pre-service teaching clinical fieldwork experiences

Developing sustainable business models for institutions’ provision of open educational resources: Learning from OpenLearn users’ motivations and experiences

Universities across the globe have, for some time, been exploring the possibilities for achieving public benefit and generating business and visibility through releasing and sharing open educational resources (OER). Many have written about the need to develop sustainable and profitable business models around the production and release of OER. Downes (2006), for example, has questioned the financial sustainability of OER production at scale. Many of the proposed business models focus on OER’s value in generating revenue and detractors of OER have questioned whether they are in competition with formal education. This paper reports on a study intended to broaden the conversation about OER business models to consider the motivations and experiences of OER users as the basis for making a better informed decision about whether OER and formal learning are competitive or complementary with each other. The study focused on OpenLearn - the Open University’s (OU) web-based platform for OER, which hosts hundreds of online courses and videos and is accessed by over 3,000,000 users a year. A large scale survey and follow-up interviews with OpenLearn users worldwide revealed that university provided OER can offer learners a bridge to formal education, allowing them to try out a subject before registering on a formal course and to build confidence in their abilities as learners. In addition, it was found that using OER during formal paid-for study can improve learners’ performance and self-reliance, leading to increased retention and satisfaction with the learning experience

Open educational resources for all? Comparing user motivations and characteristics across The Open University’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform.

With the rise in access to mobile multimedia devices, educational institutions have exploited the iTunes U platform as an additional channel to provide free educational resources with the aim of profile-raising and breaking down barriers to education. For those prepared to invest in content preparation, it is possible to produce interactive, portable material that can be made available globally. Commentators have questioned both the financial implications for platform-specific content production, and the availability of devices for learners to access it (Osborne, 2012). The Open University (OU) makes its free educational resources available on iTunes U and via its web-based open educational resources (OER) platform, OpenLearn. The OU’s OER on iTunes U reached the 60 million download mark in 2013; its OpenLearn platform boasts 27 million unique visitors since 2006. This paper reports the results of a large-scale study of users of the OU’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform. A survey of several thousand users revealed key differences in demographics between those accessing OER via the web and via iTunes U. In addition, the data allowed comparison between three groups: formal learners, informal learners and educators. The study raises questions about whether university-provided OER meet the needs of users and makes recommendations for how content can be modified to suit their needs. As the publishing of OER becomes core to business, we reflect on reasons why understanding users’ motivations and demographics is vital, allowing for needs-led resource provision and content that is adapted to best achieve learner satisfaction, and to deliver institutions’ social mission

The Encyclopedia Show: Community-Based Performance in Pursuit of Classroom Interdisciplinarity

abstract: In May 2014, The Encyclopedia Show: Chicago performed its last volume. Like all others before, the Show was a collection of performances devised by artists, musicians, poets and playwrights all performing various subtopics surrounding a central theme, taken from “an actual Encyclopedia.” The final show was Volume 56 for Chicago; the founding city ended their six year run with an amassed body of work exploring topics ranging from Wyoming to Alan Turing, Serial Killers to Vice Presidents. Perhaps more impressive than the monthly performance event in Chicago is the fact that the show has been “franchised” to organizers and performers in at least seventeen cities. Franchise agreements mandated that for at least the first year of performance, topics were to follow Chicago’s schedule, thus creating an archive of Shows around the world, each that started with Bears, moved to The Moon, onto Visible Spectrum of Color, and so on. Now that the Chicago show has ended, I wonder what will happen to the innovative format for community performance that has reached thousands of audience members and inspired hundreds of individual performances across the globe in a six-year period. This project, like much of my own work, has two aims: first, to provide the first substantive history of The Encyclopedia Show for archival purposes; and second, to explore whether this format can be used to achieve the goals of “interdisciplinarity” in the classroom. In an effort to honor my own interests in multiple academic disciplines and in an attempt to capture the structural and performative “feel” of an Encyclopedia Show, this dissertation takes the shape of an actual Encyclopedia Show. The overarching topic of this “show” is: Michelle Hill: The Doctoral Process. In an actual Encyclopedia Show, subtopics would work to explore multiple perspectives and narratives encompassed by the central topic. As such, my “subtopics” are devoted to the roles I have played throughout my doctoral process: historian, academic, teacher. A fourth role, performer, works to transition between the sections and further create the feel of a “breakage” from a more traditional dissertation.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Theatre 201

The Role of Mathematics in Engineering Practice and in the Formation of Engineers

This research investigated the role of mathematics in engineering practice and whether there is a relationship between students’ experiences with school mathematics and their choice of engineering as a career. The study was inspired by the observation that there is a lacuna in the scholarly literature concerning the nature of mathematics’ role, if any, as a significant cause of the declining number of students entering professional engineering courses. Additionally there is currently no broad picture of the mathematical expertise required or used by practising engineers. The population of interest in this study comprises professional engineers practising in Ireland. A sequential explanatory mixed methods design, where the subsequent collection and analysis of interview data builds on the survey findings, is employed. Engineers’ use of mathematics is considered in three parts: curriculum mathematics, mathematical thinking, and engaging with mathematics. Curriculum mathematics usage is measured by a derivation of de Lange’s mathematics assessment pyramid and with reference to three dimensions: mathematics domain, usage type, and academic level. Thinking usage relates to mathematical modes of thinking. Engaging usage is the motivation to take a mathematical approach. Engineers’ experiences of school mathematics, factors that contributed to their engagement with school mathematics and the impact of their feelings about mathematics on their choice of engineering careers are investigated. The findings show that (i) engineers’ feelings about mathematics are a major influence on their choice of engineering as a career; (ii) teachers, affective factors and sociocultural influences are the main contributors to engineers’ interest in and learning of mathematics; (iii) while almost two thirds of engineers use high level curriculum mathematics in engineering practice, mathematical thinking has a greater relevance to engineers’ work compared to curriculum mathematics; (iv) professional engineers’ curriculum mathematics usage is dependent on the interaction of engineering discipline and role and their mathematical thinking usage is independent of discipline and role; (v) engineers show high affective engagement with mathematics and their usage of mathematics in engineering practice is influenced by the value given to mathematics within their organisation; and (vi) the focus on “objective” solutions at the expense of tacit knowledge in mathematics education reduces the value of mathematics in engineering practice

Finishing on-time: A qualitative examination of contributors to timely undergraduate degree completion

The purpose of this study was to determine the most significant factors that contributed to on-time undergraduate degree completion. On-time degree completion requires that a student complete all the requirements of their degree within 4.5 years or less. A grounded theory methodology was used to conduct the study. Narrative data was collected through semi-structured interviews. Thirty former students who completed their undergraduate degree at Virginia Commonwealth University were recruited for this study. To be eligible for the study, participants had to have completed their undergraduate degree in 4.5 years or less and graduated between 2004 and 2011. The analysis of the narrative data determined that preparation for on-time completion begins in high school and continues throughout a student’s college career. First, high school students who develop ‘academic self-esteem’ by participating in an honors courses or an early college credit program in high school enter college with the belief, or personal vision, that they can complete their degree in 4 years. However, in cases where the student matriculates without ‘academic self-esteem’ directed and intensive institutional support is an effective proxy. Next, a student must be self-motivated or determined to complete on-time. They must have an inherent reason for wanting to reach that goal post. However, since the findings indicated that motivation can be internal, external, or both, institutional support can be used as effective tool to develop these qualities where needed. Third, if students are to complete their undergraduate degrees on-time, they must develop a personal plan for accomplishing that goal at the very beginning of their college careers. This plan should be incorporated into the student’s academic advising sessions and updated as they acquire the credits required for the completion of their degree. And finally, students should be strongly encouraged to engage in campus life by participating student clubs, organizations, and/or athletics. Participation in campus life encourages persistence and therefore supports on-time completion