AAEM/RSA EDITOR’S MESSAGE
Virtual Insanity: Adapting Curriculum to the Virtual Environment Ryan Gibney, MD
The sun peaks over the bay, as the crispness evaporates from the morning air to greet, what — in any other normal time — would be the start of a new school year. The traditional morning routine of packing lunch, gathering supplies, and a haphazard scurry to the front door to make it to class on time, has all but disappeared. The start of a new school year as a parent has brought a new face to education across the board. In my home, we have set up a dedicated learning space for both my daughter and I, complete with paper, pens, computers, reference books, and any other tool that may be needed. As I watch my daughter dive into the realm digital learning, I wonder how this generation is going to adapt. How are they going to apply their knowledge? Is this the new norm for education (please, God I hope not)? More im-
1 to pass/fail, the myriad of quality supplemental resources, and question of lecture based teaching’s utility, traditional medical education is rapidly evolving, and the advent of distance learning has introduced a new set of complex problems. What do we, as clinical educators, do to make these sessions valuable? How do we incorporate peer learning to hone intangible skills such as empathy? How do we make it better than before? Virtual learning can be challenging for even the most skilled clinical educators. The content must be clearly developed and delivered in a way that engages the learner and maintains the quality standards of medical education. Falling back into a purely lecture driven curriculum is an easy way to navigate the virtual realm, but offers little to the learner and has been proven ineffective time and time again. Hands on, group format is limited by many institutions
Falling back into a purely lecture driven curriculum is an easy way to navigate the virtual realm, but offers little to the learner and has been proven ineffective time and time again. portantly, how will the lack of social interaction shape her future? It has been shown that peer education with regards to emotional resiliency, empathy, and problem solving, are attained through social interactions. I believe that the same is true in medical education. At the same time my daughter embarked on another year in her quest for knowledge, so did a new class of medical students and residents across the nation. However, this time was starkly different from the years before — in-person activities and orientations, social gatherings with colleagues, family and friends, and the time-honored white coat ceremony were noticeably missing. As my colleague Dr. Alexandria Gregory mentioned in the May/June issue of Common Sense, the transition of Step
mandated social distancing and distance learning policies. With a little bit of creativity and a bit more backend effort, educational interactions can be extremely effective, interactive, and fun within the virtual space.
Ways to Augment Your Virtual Learning Environment As an academic chief, the responsibility of curating our weekly conference content is no simple task. The addition of a predominantly virtual learning environment added unique challenges to development of quality content that engages the learner. Through the help of our educational fellows, we have been able to develop many interactive learning modules that translate very well to the virtual learning
environment. Here are a few of those ideas. The flipped classroom model has long been a staple in MedEd, and works incredibly well in the virtual environment. The flipped classroom focuses on the individual learner gaining and applying new knowledge. Prior to the sessions material is distributed for learning and understanding via email or assigned reading. Within the digital session application of the new material can be done through case based learning, iRAT-gRAT model, or other TBL/PBL methods. There is little work that needs to be done to translate this to the virtual learning space making it an ideal methodology for quick content integration. Choose your own adventure is another method that can be a great addition to the virtual curriculum. This allows the learners to engage in breakout rooms and solve a series of problems and clinical scenarios, expanding on the team based and problem based learning approaches. Web-based platforms, such as Google Forms, can be used to develop logic based clinical games, taking advantage of the sections feature, allowing for variant pathways through clinical scenarios. Adding a theme based on the topic can augment the engagement. For example, a Zombie Apocalypse themed game on toxidromes, or a digital escape room can increase the challenge level. Integration of puzzles requiring application of clinical knowledge allows for stronger memory association and retention. These builds can be customized to fill any amount of time and there are many online resources and how-to videos for creation. Although these are incredibly engaging and can cover broad swaths of material, there are some considerations when building these. They can be very laborious, so it’s best to start small to get the hang of the logic flow — for example a 90 minute game can take upwards of 12-16 hours to build out the content. Once you have developed a good logic flow, you can readapt it
>> COMMON SENSE NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
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