Learning Design and Medical Education

James DalzielProfessor of Learning Technology &

Director, Macquarie E-Learning Centre Of Excellence (MELCOE)

Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

james@melcoe.mq.edu.au

www.melcoe.mq.edu.au

Recorded presentation for ALTC National Teaching Fellowship

Background

• Recorded presentation to accompany main Learning Design workshop recordings for ALTC National Teaching Fellowship– See 3 Workshop recordings, and 2 Larnaca Declaration

recordings at http://www.slideshare.net/jdalziel71

– Learning Design context and Larnaca Declaration

• Reflections on Medical Education issues in Learning Design– Problem Based Learning as a Learning Design

– PBL as a “meta-template” vs actual examples

– “E-Storyboard” for activity advice and quality assurance

Learning DesignLearning Design

Learning Design Practice(LD-P)

Learning Design

Conceptual Map

(LD-CM)

Learning Design

Framework(LD-F)

The Larnaca Declaration on Learning Design:New Definitions for the future of the fieldSee www.larnacadeclaration.org for document

PBL as a LAMS Learning Design template (single research phase)

Learning Environment: Characteristics & Values

External Agencies InstitutionEducator Learner

All pedagogical approachesAll disciplines

Educational Philosophy

A range based on assumptions about the Learning Environment

Theories & Methodologies

Guidance Representation Sharing

Core Concepts of Learning Design

Tools Resources

Implementation

Program

Module

Session

Learning Activities

Level of Granularity

Teaching Cycle

Feedback Assessment Learner Analytics Evaluation

Learner Responses

Creating learning experiences aligned to particular pedagogical approaches and learning objectives

Challenge

PBL as a Learning Design

• The adoption of Problem-Based Learning in Medicine is a key example for illustrating the ideas of Learning Design– Not just the sequence of teaching and learning activities (eg,

LAMS example), but also all the issues of guidance and sharing around this, and the wider issues noted in the Learning Design Conceptual Map

– Medicine is also a key example of large scale discipline transformation of teaching approaches

– PBL instantiates a student-centric pedagogical approach, so it is useful for illustrating alternatives to traditional lecture approaches

PBL as a Learning Design

• One of the lessons of our 2008-2010 Learning Design project in Medical Education was the way that a “PBL template” worked in practice (with Bronwen Dalziel)– PBL template created and shared with academics prior to content

creation

– Academics didn’t use actual template – built their own sequences from scratch

– But subsequent investigation showed that academics had valued the ideas of PBL and the PBL template, but they used them for “inspiration” rather than “direct re-use”

– Hence, PBL acted as a sort of “meta-template”

– For further discussion & project website, see: http://lamsfoundation.org/lams2011sydney/docs/RP/Dalziel.pdfhttp://lamsfoundation.org/lams2009sydney/CD/pdfs/06_Dalziel.pdf& http://www.melcoe.mq.edu.au/altcmedical/Welcome.html

PBL Learning Design example from UWS project

Another PBL Learning Design example from UWS project

PBL as a Learning Design

• A second lesson was the importance of documenting activities within the PBL Learning Designs, and using this documentation for quality assurance and improvement– Development of the “e-storyboard” to assist academics with

pedagogical advice on improving each activity in a sequence

– Reminiscent of parallel general work on “pedagogic descriptors” by Laurillard and Conole

Example of E-storyboard for individual LD activityFor further details see:

http://lamsfoundation.org/lams2009sydney/CD/pdfs/06_Dalziel.pdf

Conclusion

• In summary, Learning Design has been useful for PBL in medicine, but there are a wide range of accompanying issues that also need to be taken into account during implementation– Re-use vs inspiration

– Accompanying pedagogical advice/quality assurance

• These findings align well with the Larnaca “LD-CM” & “Guidance” aspect of the core Learning Design ideas