Tamsin Treasure-Jones

Developing a mobile learning solution for health and social care practice

In this article we share our experiences of a large‐scale five‐year innovative programme to introduce mobile learning into health and social care (H&SC) practice placement learning and assessment that bridges the divide between the university classroom and the practice setting in which these students learn. The outputs are from the Assessment & Learning in Practice Settings (ALPS) Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL), which is working towards a framework of interprofessional assessment of Common Competences in the H&SC professions. The mobile assessment process and tools that have been developed and implemented and the outcomes of the first‐stage evaluation of the mobile assessment tools are discussed from the student perspective.

Making Sense of Bits and Pieces: A Sensemaking Tool for Informal Workplace Learning

Sensemaking at the workplace and in educational contexts has been extensively studied for decades. Interestingly, making sense out of the own wealth of learning experiences at the workplace has been widely ignored. To tackle this issue, we have implemented a novel sensemaking interface for healthcare professionals to support learning at the workplace. The proposed prototype supports remembering of informal experiences from episodic memory followed by sensemaking in semantic memory. Results from an initial study conducted as part of an iterative co-design process reveal the prototype is being perceived as useful and supportive for informal sensemaking by study participants from the healthcare domain. Furthermore, we find first evidence that re-evaluation of collected information is a potentially necessary process that needs further exploration to fully understand and support sensemaking of informal learning experiences.

Exploring informal workplace learning in primary healthcare for continuous professional development

Abstract Background and objectives: All health and social care professionals learn on the job through both formal and informal learning processes, which contributes to continuous professional development (CPD). This study explored workplace learning in General Practices, specifically looking at the role of informal learning and the workplace practices that appear to support or restrict that learning, as well as how technology was integrated into these learning processes. Methods: Three focus groups with general practitioners, practice nurses, managerial and administrative staff were conducted followed by twelve individual semi-structured interviews with participants drawn from the focus groups. Three observations of multi-disciplinary team meetings were used to establish potential team-based learning activities. Results: Triggers for informal workplace learning included patients presenting challenging or unusual conditions; exposure to others’ professional practice; and policy driven changes through revised guidance and protocols. By exploring how these triggers were acted upon, we identified mechanisms through which the primary care workplace supports or restricts informal learning through working practices, existing technologies and inter-professional structures. Conclusion: Informal workplace learning was identified as arising from both opportunistic encounters and more planned activities, which are both supported and restricted through a variety of mechanisms. Maximising informal learning opportunities and removing barriers to doing so should be a priority for primary care practitioners, managers and educators.

Patterns of Practice and Design: Towards an Agile Methodology for Educational Design Research

This paper proposes a framework which attempts to address the barriers to the development of successful educational design research through a process which identifies gaps in current practices and devises innovations to target them. Educational design research assumes an ambitious position: a dual commitment to understand and contribute to both theory and practice. This task is confounded by the complexity of the domain and the inherent multi-stakeholder nature of most initiatives. Three barriers to success are identified: the shortage of mechanisms for cross-stakeholder dialogue, the failure to account for existing practices and contexts, and the rigid processes dictated by the dynamics of research projects. We report early findings from an attempt to address these barriers, based on an extension and adaptation of the Participatory Pattern Workshop (PPW) methodology (This paper has received the support of the Learning Layers project co-funded by the European Commission; Grant Agreement Number 318209; http://learning-layers.eu/).

Designing Scalable Informal Learning Solutions with Personas: A Pilot Study in the Healthcare Sector

Driven by ever shorter cycles of innovation, organizations and individuals nowadays have to acquire, understand and apply new knowledge in shorter periods of time [1]. Much of this rapid learning appears to be achieved by workers learning on the job and from colleagues --- informal learning rather than learning from traditional, curriculum-based training [2]. Mobile technology could potentially provide support to this informal learning as it can provide scalable and flexible learning tools that can be used at any time across a variety of locations: at home, on different work sites, during travel [3]. However, designing learning technology that can support such unstructured, creative and expertise-driven informal learning is challenging, especially as there are likely to be great variations across employees in terms of their perceptions, experiences and expectations regarding technology [4]. These expectations and experiences may also differ from those of the developers and designers. Yet it is the match between user requirements and functionalities that lies at the heart of a successful learning technology. In Learning Layers we are exploring how creating and using Personas may help to design scalable technology for supporting informal learning in healthcare.

Co-design of technology-enhanced learning resources

Editors’ note: Although many clinical teachers may not immediately see the relevance of this toolbox article to their own work, nowadays we ignore technology-enhanced learning (TEL) at our peril. The majority of contemporary learners expect to be able to complement their education online and are used to having resources at their fi ngertips. The authors of this toolbox are experienced educators who have been engaged in this space for over a decade. They give some examples of educational resources, such as eBooks, apps, and online resources. The paper also focuses on the importance of involving learners in the design and development of these resources – a message that is of relevance to all areas of health professional education. There is advice on increasing the likelihood that students and trainee health professionals will both adopt and benefi t from new TEL resources. The authors do assume that readers are already engaged to some extent in TEL development. They work through the steps of building a co-design team and the importance of defi ning the design process to foster the creativity of all concerned. To enhance the likelihood of the success of the resources, it is important to pilot and then respond to feedback. There is an acknowledgement that these activities require time and commitment, but the message is that this is time well spent for the co-production of educationally sound TEL resources.