Self-awareness and reflection: exploring the 'therapeutic use of self'

Assesses what the participants gained from a pilot partnership course set up to help social care staff to explore new therapeutic ways of working with people with learning disabilities. Therapeutic use of self; Empathy as a cornerstone of therapeutic work; Presencing; Illustration that all the participants felt that the course had increased their awareness in the areas addressed by the course

The views of trainee clinical psychologists and student nurses about the involvement of clients with a learning disability in their training

The present study compares the views of trainee clinical psychologists (n=31) and student nurses (n=15) about user involvement in formal teaching. The study found no significant differences between group views. Eighty-two percent of the all participants thought that user involvement was important, but only 29% had had such involvement in their own teaching. Of these, the mean rating of usefulness was 2.2, indicating that it was not perceived as being particularly useful. The group were significantly more likely to identify the area of ‘service provision’ as an area of teaching for clients to be involved in and ‘gaining client perspective’ as a benefit of user involvement in teaching. Client difficulties, such as communication were identified by a significant number of participants as a drawback of involving clients in teaching. The implications of these findings, in terms of promoting meaningful user involvement in formal training programmes are discussed

Putting ourselves in the picture: art workshops in the professional development of university lecturers.

Nurse education is characterised by dissonance, ambiguity and uncertainty. Such a context makes demands on the educator’s authenticity or sense of self. This paper reports an attempt to provide a space where dissonance, ambiguity and uncertainty could be held, tolerated and examined and where authenticity could be recovered or developed through the practice of artistry. Three art workshops were offered to 8 nurse educators over a period of three months. Each of the participants and the co-facilitator were subsequently interviewed. All welcomed the opportunity to find meaning in their practice and to be listened to in a climate of empathy, acceptance and congruence. They undertook novel activities that allowed for discovery and surprise. They explored their sense of self and coined fresh metaphors to communicate their experiences. The paper argues that there is room for approaches to academic staff development that go against the mainstream

From students to scientists:The impact of interactive engagement in lectures

“Graduate attributes” are widely believed to be important in developing the scientific skill-set, with generic skills being viewed as more important than discipline-specific qualities. Importantly, students need opportunities to think and practice in ways akin to experts. The continued use of didactic lectures in university education often leads to the accumulation of superficial knowledge, and does not adequately train students to acquire the skills and attributes required of an effective scientist: critical thinking, an inquiring mind and creativity. We analysed active learning lecture strategies in a second year genetics course to determine their effectiveness in developing the scientific skill-set. These were found to be more beneficial than standard lecturing. Investigation of one of these strategies, the “quecture” (an adaptation of the flipped classroom), found that students did not view this method as being the most useful, despite being the most interactive. Our evidence suggests this student resistance to result from the requirement for prior preparation, perceived as an increased workload. We advocate the incorporation of active learning strategies in lectures to support the development of students’ scientific skill–set and specifically advise the introduction of novel formats such as the quecture early in university level science education. Keywords: Active learning, interactive engagement, quecture, scientific skill-set, graduate attribute