Developing Online Asynchronous Materials – An Associate Lecturer’s Perspective

This year, FMS TEL assisted in the development of learning materials about unconscious bias in healthcare settings. This week we are sharing how we worked with Associate Lecturer Ann Johnson to design and create these materials.

As this was Ann’s first year as part of the module team, it was an exciting challenge to be involved in creating her first set of blended learning materials on Canvas. The process was highly collaborative, and the FMS TEL Team were able to contribute our knowledge of pedagogy – particularly online teaching – and the technical know-how to make the materials in Canvas and ensure they would work as needed.

To start the process, Ann outlined her goals for students, which we were able to shape into learning outcomes. She provided the final discussion topic exercise, and we discussed the issues to be considered as part of that discussion.

“How can I get people to challenge their own thinking?”

We discussed the learning outcomes and concepts, and this meant that I was able to suggest scaffolding activities for students to undertake in order to give students a solid foundation and build their confidence to answer the complex question at the end of the topic.

The design process was undertaken through a series of video calls during which we discussed the materials and reviewed how they worked on Canvas, finishing with a few action points for each of us. We discussed the learning journey in detail and stepped through content logically to ensure clarity. The development phase prompted questions and refinements – such as looking for specific resources or articles that could support the teaching.

“it improved my practice”

Activities added included short text and video input – written and sourced by Ann – which highlighted key concepts. A quiz was added so that students could test their knowledge of these important definitions and concepts. This allowed students to feel confident that they had a good grasp of the basics before applying them to their own contexts.

As an experienced facilitator, Ann identified where students might find the materials challenging, as the topic to be explored has a very personal dimension. We worked together to put in place alternative activities for students who preferred to reflect personally, discuss privately, or in an online seminar that Ann would facilitate.

At the end of the design process, the created materials were approved for inclusion in the module by module leader Fraser Birrell and will be part of MCR8032 in coming years. Working together with FMS TEL enabled the creation of high-quality and interactive online learning resources and allowed Ann to upskill in the area of asynchronous online teaching.

Associate Lecturer Profile

Ann Johnson has been a Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Advocate, Lay tutor, and facilitator for twenty-five years, researching and creating a Patient Involvement Framework for Leicester University Medical School. She has conducted extensive community outreach in London, Leicester, and Florida USA with the goal of bridging communications between patients and practitioners. She is continuing her work as an Associate Lecturer and PPI Advocate at the School of Medicine.

Read more about the materials we developed.

Blogging: Getting Started and Keeping it Going

We were recently invited to present this blog, and our experiences running it at the Directors of Education forum. We have recorded this presentation as a video for anyone who may be interested in starting their own blog within their team.

The presentation covers:

  • Identifying needs and measuring impact
  • Things to consider before getting started
  • How to keep a blog running over a long period of time
FMS TEL Blog: A practice-sharing success story

Newcastle University staff can watch the video on Panopto.

We ALL Draw!

During the FMS TEL Conference, Leonard Shapiro of the University of Cape Town presented an overview of the many ways in which people draw, dispelled myths about the ‘quality’ of a drawing, and covered some of the many ways in which drawing can be useful in learning and in communication once we stop judging ourselves on our artistic skill.

You can watch Leonard’s talk in Panopto.

The university has a range of tools that allow us to draw for learning and communication, and draw collaboratively when teaching in person and online, such as smart boards, interactive whiteboards, and collaborative whiteboards in Zoom and Teams, as well as note making apps on devices we have in our pockets.

Drawing as a method to understand 3D anatomical structures is central to Leonard’s work – how might drawing allow your students to take a different viewpoint in your subject?

You may also wish to consider the approaches and methods used in the other linked FMS TEL videos below:

Exploring 3D Anatomy – The University of Cape Town Launch

This week students from the University of Cape Town have joined the pilot of the Exploring 3D Anatomy course.

The second pilot of the Exploring 3D Anatomy course is now live, with students participating at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Leonard Shapiro presented an introduction to the course on 18th March to a class of second-year medical students – many of whom joined the class remotely via Teams.

Photo of a presentation Exploring 2D Anatomy.
Leonard presents the course
Photo of a classroom with Zoom call showing on a projection screen.
An example of one of the course exercises is shared
Photo of presenter and project screen showing exercises.
Leonard presents the course exercises
Dr Iain Keenan in the course trailer
Dr Iain Keenan in the course trailer

The course trailer was also shown, and students were invited to sign up using a QR code posted on the slide show as well as on posters in the lecture theatre. Senior lecturer in Anatomy, Dr Geney Gunston, also posted the sign-up link for the students on VULA, the university messaging system.

Many students have signed up, and we look forward to working with them over the next few weeks as they Explore 3D Anatomy from home.

After this pilot and a further development phase, we hope to make the course more widely available to many more students.

Images provided by UCT medical student Mulaudzi God-mother Matodzi-muswa and Leonard Shapiro.

Providing Live Feedback Using Office 365 Online

This short guide describes how to use the Reviewing tool in Microsoft 365 apps to dynamically collaborate on files.

Would you and your students benefit from the ability to have live, in-line feedback on essays, projects, and other work products? You can provide in-time feedback to students or colleagues as they work on individual or group work using Office 365 Share and Reviewing features. We’ve recently started using this method in our TEL Team to collaborate on documents.

To start the process, author simply need to share their file with the reviewer using the Share button in the file menu bar.

Share button in Word

This sends a link to the file to the reviewer. By clicking on the link, the file will be opened in Office 365 online. The file could be a Word document, PowerPoint presentation, or an Excel workbook.

To make revisions that display to other authors/contributors enter the Reviewing setting.

Reviewing setting drop down.

This will turn on your track changes that will then be displayed to other document authors. The other authors can see mark-up and accept or reject changes in-time or asynchronously as needed. Note, the editing and viewing must take place in the Online Word App. Using the desktop app to view the changes will not show track changes.

Side by side review and live track changes.

This can greatly benefit students as they work through their assignments, as well as give reviewers with the opportunity to provide input and suggestions as work products develop. It can also allow for dynamic collaboration between colleagues by allowing a “single” author control over accepting or rejecting edits by others.

An example of this could be a group of students working on a Word document together. One student could be in charge of the ‘final’ document while the other students make additions and changes at track changes. Thus increasing the transparency of editing. The coordinating author could then choose to accept or reject the input from their fellow students.

The unique power of live track changes provides authors with the opportunity to modify and edit their work as it develops rather than only at the point of submission or finalisation. This similarly benefits the reviewer as the option to review is not time constrained in the same manner as a submission for review may be.

2021 Showcase

A showcase of some of our work from 2021 and our submissions to the Learning and Teaching Conference 2022.

The FMS TEL team have collaborated on a wide range of projects throughout 2021, some of which we have submitted to the internal Learning and Teaching Conference 2022.

Adopting a flexible approach to professional written exams during COVID

Staff from the School of Dental Sciences and FMS-TEL have collaborated throughout the pandemic to ensure summative assessments continue in a robust fashion to satisfy regulatory requirements. This required a flexible approach to online assessment which continues to be important as the uncertainty continues. This presentation details the challenges we have faced and solutions we have utilised, offering practical advice for those who may wish to run online exams in the future on any platform.

Sarah Rolland and Luisa Wakeling, School of Dental Sciences

Audio Commentary and Structured Asynchronous Teaching of Communication Skills in Dietetics and Nutrition

Role-play and peer observation are widely used as educational methods for teaching communication skills in healthcare education, which has become a greater challenge to implement during the pandemic. In the context of dietetics and nutrition, our students developed communication skills using innovative audio resources. This video will discuss student voice survey findings regarding engagement and quality perceptions of the resources, and advise those wishing to create similar tasks, including task setup and technical support.

Susan Lennie, Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences

Can Scaffolding help Reflective Practice?

This workshop sets out the aims of incorporating reflective practice with scaffolded approaches in your teaching contexts and invites you to explore their potential value in your programmes or modules. Structured reflective templates are one of the key developments of the new NU Reflect system, which are currently being piloted. This session will also offer case studies to demonstrate how colleagues have implemented reflective templates to support the student reflective process within their contexts.

Patrick Rosenkranz, Simon Cotterill, Sam Flowers, David Gillies, David Teasdale

Content Evolution

A brief look at the FMS bespoke VLE Ngage, and its special features which were designed for our distance learning programmes. This session will cover how we migrated our content into Canvas without losing functionality and the challenges we encountered. We will also discuss how the content has evolved during the pandemic and the changes made to enhance the student experience.

Emily Smith, FMS TEL

Creating and Using Animations to Explain Concepts

This video demonstrates a how animations can be used to demonstrate concepts in teaching. It showcases advanced animations that are used to show complex concepts and allow for dynamic and interactive content to be shared on screen. Should you not have access to high-end software, the video also shows what can be achieved using PowerPoint animations and shows some tools that can be used to develop understanding beyond static diagrams or simple videos.

Ashley Reynolds, FMS TEL

Designing Convertible Teaching

This workshop provides colleagues with practical tips on how to design teaching that can be converted between online and offline, and synchronous and asynchronous delivery styles with minimal effort. Participants will think through resource design using examples, and apply this knowledge to their own resources brought to the session. Participants will take away technological shortcuts that reduce the burden when changing delivery styles, as well as an understanding of how to design inherently flexible resources.

Eleanor Gordon, FMS TEL

Exploring 3D Anatomy: Collaborative Development of an Inclusive Online Course Supporting Universal Enhancement of Transferable Observational Skills

This talk covers the development of a MOOC which develops students’ skills in 3D Spatial Awareness in the context of the study of anatomy. This collaboration between Newcastle University and the University of Cape Town focuses on specific art-based and technology enhanced learning exercises to develop skills that will enhance students’ capabilities in clinical observation, diagnosis, and surgical training. Prior research and development of specific observation methodologies, their deployment in an online environment, and students’ learning outcomes will be shared.

Iain Keenan, School of Medical Education

Flipping case-based learning online in response to the pandemic

This presentation shares practice from rapid changes made to ‘flip’ learning and teaching in MB BS, in response to the pandemic. This is in the context of a new Clinical Decision Making course, originally designed to use online cases to supplement primarily face-to-face learning and teaching in both UK and NuMed. The pandemic gave need to rapidly shift to predominantly online delivery with more asynchronous delivery. We will demonstrate adaptions made and discuss lessons learned.

John Moss, David Kennedy, Dan Plummer

Staff development: collaboration across continents for using TEL

A study across campuses of Newcastle University into perceptions of TEL use found that staff in the NUMed and Singapore campuses felt they lagged behind in training for using TEL. The FMSTEL team responded with an online conference, collaborating with NUMed, at a time accessible to all. Various topics included specific technologies and embedding online transnational cross-campus teaching in the curriculum. Successful, it may become an annual event.

Alison Clapp, David Kennedy, Ruth Valentine, John Moss and Bhavani Veasuvalingam, FMS and NUMed

Using Canvas Commons to Supply and Support Student Learning Opportunities

What is Canvas Commons, how does it work, and why is it useful for disseminating online learning material? I will present examples of tutorials I have shared and induction material. By using Commons we can promote our material and the University to the wider Canvas Community. This will address the theme of Changing Practice through the Pandemic by focusing on the use of Canvas to provide excellent learning opportunities.

Michelle Miller, FMS TEL

Exploring 3D Anatomy – A New MOOC Developed with FMS TEL

Over the past few months, the FMS TEL team have been working on bringing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to life. The course, Exploring 3D Anatomy, is an active, hands-on, and engaging online course now available to Newcastle students and staff! The course was designed by Dr Iain Keenan of Newcastle University and Mr Leonard Shapiro of the University of Cape Town.

3D spatial awareness is a cognitive function. Improving it improves students’ 3D visualisation ability and spatial skills in anatomy learning.

In our experience, medical, dental, and other healthcare students can experience significant challenges in 3D spatial anatomy. Because of the three-dimensional arrangement of the human body, student spatial awareness can be a major influence on their anatomical education. In this online course, students can practice several  easy-to-follow, hands-on exercises that we have designed to address and improve 3D spatial awareness. Video demonstrations by Iain and Leonard guide students through each activity, which involve the use of  readily available household objects such as a piece of fruit, a jar, or a fork.

As simple as these exercises are to follow and carry out, the effect of such activities on improving 3D spatial awareness can be notable. What’s more, the exercises can be enjoyable too!

The Fruit Exercise: a guided dissection of this 3D object can improve 3D spatial understanding of the anatomical planes.

The practical exercises in the course are demonstrated by Iain and Leonard on video, allowing students to access the content at their own pace. These videos show the exercises in detail and allow students to hear the conversation as the exercise unfolds. Videos are short and simple to follow, and have been captioned by the team to ensure clarity.

Leonard Demonstrating the Fruit Exercise with a Lemon
Iain Starting the Fruit Exercise with a Lime

All Newcastle University staff and students can join the Canvas course, which is structured in three parts and requires around 4 hours of activity in total. We hope to expand access to an extended version of the course in 2022/23. For further information, please contact Dr Iain Keenan.

Contacts 

Dr Iain Keenan, Senior Lecturer in Anatomy, School of Medical Education, Newcastle University 

Mr Leonard Shapiro, Observation and Spatial Awareness Teacher, Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town 

Further Reading 

This course is supported by the following research: 

Backhouse, M., Fitzpatrick, M., Hutchinson, J., Thandi, C.S. and Keenan, I.D. (2017), Improvements in anatomy knowledge when utilizing a novel cyclical “Observe-Reflect-Draw-Edit-Repeat” learning process. Anat Sci Educ, 10: 7-22. https://doi.org/10.1002/ase.1616

Ben Awadh, A., Clark, J., Clowry, G. and Keenan, I.D. (2021), Multimodal Three-Dimensional Visualization Enhances Novice Learner Interpretation of Basic Cross-Sectional Anatomy. Anat Sci Educ. https://doi.org/10.1002/ase.2045

Branson TM, Shapiro L, Venter RG. Observation of Patients’ 3D Printed Anatomical Features and 3D Visualisation Technologies Improve Spatial Awareness for Surgical Planning and in-Theatre Performance. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2021;1334:23-37. Available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34476743/

Reid, S., Shapiro, L. and Louw, G. (2019), How Haptics and Drawing Enhance the Learning of Anatomy. Anat Sci Educ, 12: 164-172. https://doi.org/10.1002/ase.1807

Shapiro, L., Bell, K., Dhas, K., Branson, T., Louw, G. and Keenan, I.D. (2020), Focused Multisensory Anatomy Observation and Drawing for Enhancing Social Learning and Three-Dimensional Spatial Understanding. Anat Sci Educ, 13: 488-503. https://doi.org/10.1002/ase.1929