DUAL DISCOVERY (D²): REFLECTIVE JOURNALLING

Mrs Carmen Whittle

Contract lecturer: Environmental Health

Reflective praxis is a necessary skill for all health professionals. The skill of critically reflecting on one's own experiences and actions to learn and grow through the examination of past experiences, thoughts on topics and ways of doing things in relation to new knowledge gained is crucial in self-development.

This reflective journal assessment was introduced at second year level. The goal of the reflective journal is to highlight learning about oneself and the topic or situation, and to bring meaning to it. It also challenges the status quo of practice, thoughts and assumptions and may therefore inform decisions, actions, attitudes, beliefs and understanding about ourselves and in this instance community development and the diverse issues that must be taken into consideration within the environmental health profession.

This electronic reflective journal assessment created an opportunity for dual discovery; the opportunity is created for the lecturer to assess the teaching methods employed and the level of understanding of the students as they progress through the different units in the module. It focuses on two elements of the lecture: the theoretical content and the lecture activity. This is accomplished by the students having a platform to weekly evaluate the quality and success of their learning, enabling them to identify areas that need more attention and setting goals and action plans in motion.  It not only assists students in engaging with concepts and points raised in class discussions but also serves as a creative repository for them to capture important points for preparation for topic specific assessments. In reflecting on their lecture experience the lecturer can gauge the level of success of the teaching activity and implement strategies to reinforce learning areas that are challenging.

INNOVATIVE ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES AND TOOLS FOR WORK INTEGRATED LEARNING (WIL) IN THE BEMC COURSE

Mr Daniel Brink

Lecturer: Emergency Medical Care

In this presentation, we explored how we've used digital tools and creative teaching methods to help teachers work together better and get students more involved in their learning. We'll focus on how we've used Microsoft Teams to make Work Integrated Learning (WIL) experiences easier for both educators and students.

We found that Microsoft Teams has some great features that can really help us out. The Shifts tool, for example, makes it easy for us to schedule and book student placements. And the online spreadsheets within Teams let students keep track of their shifts and the new skills they're developing. We've also found that Microsoft Forms is super useful in getting students to reflect on their shifts by sharing summaries and reflections.

To assess student performance and provide feedback, we created a gradebook in Teams. This central system helps us manage and evaluate student submissions, like assignments and reports. We even added a marking rubric to make sure our assessments were consistent and efficient. And you know what? It worked! In the first term alone, we successfully handled 518 student shift reflections from 78 students.

By bringing together these digital tools and resources, we've managed to create a learning environment where lecturer and students can collaborate, engage, and learn effectively. Our approach shows just how powerful technology can be in transforming the learning experience.

So, to sum up, we've learned that using versatile platforms like Microsoft Teams can really help us streamline our work, get students involved, and improve how we assess learning. By embracing technology, we can create dynamic, engaging, and efficient learning experiences that truly meet the needs of today's learners.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT THROUGH PHOTO ESSAYS AND CHECKLISTS

Dr Riaan van de Venter

Lecturer, Department of Radiography

Image analysis and interpretation is a basic skill that radiographers need. This skill needs to be developed in the classroom as well as during workplace learning. However, this is a complex skill, and it takes time to develop it. The majority of student struggle with this aspect (it is even challenging for many qualified radiographers). To assist students to develop this skill a photo essay (i.e., a collection of images that work together to tell a story) and checklist (i.e., an assessment tool that lists the specific criteria that should be evaluated to show successful completion of a topic/learning goal) formative assessment is used.

This not only assists in reinforcing learning of the theoretical concepts but also serves as a reference tool to be used in preparation for practice self-directed and class activities as well as theoretical and clinical summative assessments. Of note is that the instructions to students must be very clear and using a dialogic approach to writing the instructions is useful.

In addition, it is imperative to underscore why this formative assessment is important to the students so that they can invest the necessary time and effort in completing the task.