Peiyi Lin

Teaching Communication Skills to Hospice Teams Comparing the Effectiveness of a Communication Skills Laboratory With In-Person, Second Life, and Phone Role-Playing

Introduction: Communication skills are critical in hospice care but challenging to teach. Therefore, a hospice agency developed a communication skills laboratory for nurses and social workers. Methods: Learners role-played 3 common hospice scenarios. The role-play modalities were in-person, Second Life, and telephone. Learners were scored on 4 communication aspects. Results: Learners in all modalities rated the laboratory as very effective. However, learners in the Second Life and phone modality showed greater improvements from scene 1 to 3 than those in the in-person modality. There were no significant differences in improvement between the Second Life and phone modalities. Conclusion: Results support the effectiveness of this communication skills laboratory while using different teaching modalities and show phone and Second Life role-plays were more effective than an in-person role-play.

SENSE IT - student created water quality sensors

This paper describes the structure and impact of an NSF-funded ITEST project designed to enrich science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education using educational modules that teach students to construct, program, and test a series of sensors used to monitor water quality. During the three years of the SENSE IT project, over 60 teachers across New York, New Jersey and Washington were provided with equipment and professional development, and then implemented the modules in their classrooms with over 2,000 middle and high school students. Project evaluation results indicate that the curriculum was well received by teachers and students, could be integrated into several different subject areas and types of courses, and was effective for a wide range of students.