News

On April 29^th and 30^th, Dalhousie University hosted its annual Conference on Teaching and Learning. This year, the conference brought together professors and staff from across campus – and Canada – to present on best practices and emerging trends in e-learning. The Faculty of Health Professions had a large presence at the conference, Fostering Deep Learning with Technology, with presentations from three different schools. In fact, with sessions on a broad range of e-learning topics, Health Professions had the second largest presence at the conference behind the Faculty of Science.

Shelley Cobbett, faculty at the School of Nursing’s Yarmouth site, was honoured as one of the recipients of the Change One Thing Challenge. Her submission, Bridging a Geographical Gap for Rural and Northern Nursing Students: Online Nursing Research Journal Club, outlined the impact the inclusion of an online journal club had in increasing access to professional networking in formal research critique discussions for rural and northern students.

The School of Nursing’s Dr. Holly Richardson gave the presentation Blended Learning: Flipping, Flopping, and Finding the Balance. Dr. Richardson discussed her experiences teaching a blended course on palliative care and outlined some of the successes, hurdles and lessons learned. The School of Occupational Therapy’s Diane MacKenzie presented on her and collaborator, Acting Associate Dean Academic Brenda Merrit’s, experience developing a series of interactive video learning modules (VLMs). MacKenzie’s presentation outlined how VLMs allow students to see the impact of their decisions on patients by enabling them to direct the course of action through selecting an intervention and viewing its related outcome. Incorporating innovations like these into conventional university teaching is helping students develop clinical reasoning skills in a safe environment.

The conference concluded with a presentation from the School of Social Work’s Carolyn Campbell and Gail Blaikie and Health Professions’ Manager - Distance Education Trish Farry. Their presentation, Digging Deeper: Critically Reflective Teaching in an Online Environment, countered the myth that online education only works for basic knowledge translation. In this interactive workshop, Campbell, Blaikie and Farry outlined their experiences designing and facilitating courses that foster deeper learning, teach critical thinking skills and change mindsets. This workshop saw much discussion and problem-solving with participants bringing their course development challenges to the group.

Congratulations to Shelley Cobbett on her award and to all FHP presenters on a job well done!