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Discussion: discussion forums in medical educationReported This is a featured thread

Category: Discussion Forum / General Discussion
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kalwinston
discussion forums in medical education
Feb 4 2009, 7:08 PM EST | Post edited: Feb 4 2009, 7:08 PM EST
Do you know of any examples of the successful use of discussion forums in medical education? Something that has helpd reduce the number of emails to faculty and encouraged studnets to answer each other's questions? 0  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
DeirdreB
DeirdreB
1. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Feb 6 2009, 11:13 AM EST | Post edited: Feb 6 2009, 11:13 AM EST
Actually this has been a frustrating issue for my campus not because our students weren't willing but because the tools our campus purchased were poor. Here were some of our issues

1. adding student process was complicated
2. login process was complicated
3. students had to login to see if anyone had posted replies because there was no email notification
4. information was added chronologically by date not by topic, so it wasn'y always clear what people were responding to.

If you want to see a more informal discussion process that has a large amount of student involvement see Medical Education Evolution
http://medschoolevolution.ning.com/

 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
hrupert
hrupert
2. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Feb 13 2009, 10:58 AM EST | Post edited: Feb 13 2009, 10:58 AM EST
I agree that discussion tools are often limited in their functionality. So often technical decisions are made without consulting those who will use the tool for instruction. That said, I suggest considering using a wiki. It is proving effective for Year 3 medical clerks at U of Alberta participating in the Integrated Community Clerkship. Our wiki is a Wetpaint site, just like this Med Ed site.

As an instructional designer working in medical education, I am championing wikis quite a lot these days because they give students greater control on their learning. Giving students the right to add, edit, modify pages means they can take responsibility for building knowledge together. A wiki reaches beyond a discussion forum. It takes some maintenance, but I find the templates feature in Wetpaint can assist greatly.

Curious to hear others' thoughts on this solution. 0  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    

fhekelman@chw.edu
3. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 15 2009, 9:01 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 15 2009, 9:01 PM EDT
I think discussion groups would need some type of scaffold that individuals are interested in learning. It may be helpful to faculty who are trying to lead discussion forums. Do you find this valuable?    
DeirdreB
DeirdreB
4. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 16 2009, 1:05 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 16 2009, 1:05 PM EDT
I really like wikis and we use them quite a bit for committee and research groups but faculty are reluctant to use with students. 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
DeirdreB
DeirdreB
5. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 16 2009, 1:07 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 16 2009, 1:07 PM EDT
One of our faculty in the public health area has successfully used a role play, question technique where he pretends to be the Minister of Health asking a question. Students like the idea even if they know it is staged. Do you find this valuable?    
DeirdreB
DeirdreB
6. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 16 2009, 1:10 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 16 2009, 1:10 PM EDT
Another technique I've used is assign half the class to argue A and half the class to argue B, then switch. This forces students to think about both sides of a discussion. 0  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
DeirdreB
DeirdreB
7. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 16 2009, 1:12 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 16 2009, 1:12 PM EDT
Another is role playing where students are assigned to act as a parent, hospital administrator, etc. Again this helps develop empathy and understanding when they walk in someone else's shoes. 0  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    

fhekelman@chw.edu
8. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 16 2009, 4:03 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 16 2009, 4:03 PM EDT
"Do you know of any examples of the successful use of discussion forums in medical education? Something that has helpd reduce the number of emails to faculty and encouraged studnets to answer each other's questions?"
I deal with residents and our system is not successful either. 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
DeirdreB
DeirdreB
9. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 16 2009, 5:04 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 16 2009, 5:04 PM EDT
I also find residents reject technology out of hand as a waste of time. Any thoughts?
 Do you find this valuable?    

fhekelman@chw.edu
10. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 17 2009, 12:40 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 17 2009, 12:40 PM EDT
Why do you think residents don't like discussion forums? 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    

fhekelman@chw.edu
11. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 17 2009, 12:41 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 17 2009, 12:41 PM EDT
I don't think it is due to not being useful. 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
DeirdreB
DeirdreB
12. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 17 2009, 2:20 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 17 2009, 2:20 PM EDT
I think they are so used to being passive listeners bend on learning a lot of information that discussion seems like a waste of time. I also think this is an artifact of the competitive system most of them grew up in. We have a new generation of med students about to enter residency who came through our pass/fail, team building curriculum that have better discussion skills. This would be an interesting research topic. Do you find this valuable?    

fhekelman@chw.edu
13. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 17 2009, 5:54 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 17 2009, 5:54 PM EDT
How about problem-based learning? Do you find this valuable?    

fhekelman@chw.edu
14. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 17 2009, 5:56 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 17 2009, 5:56 PM EDT
It's validating. 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    

fhekelman@chw.edu
15. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 17 2009, 5:57 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 17 2009, 5:57 PM EDT
PBL Do you find this valuable?    

fhekelman@chw.edu
16. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 17 2009, 5:59 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 17 2009, 5:59 PM EDT
They don't have the time. Do you find this valuable?    
DeirdreB
DeirdreB
17. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Mar 18 2009, 1:23 PM EDT | Post edited: Mar 18 2009, 1:28 PM EDT
We use formal PBL in undergraduate Interprofessional Education. It works very well in that context.Formal PBL is quite time intensive so our faculty has been reluctant to expand its use. We do use a lot of Case Based scenarios which work well.

By formal PBL, I'm referring to the McMaster approach. Do you find this valuable?    

globalmed
19. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Aug 25 2009, 3:10 AM EDT | Post edited: Aug 25 2009, 3:12 AM EDT
It' good, whether for myself or my family.Since my grandpa has been ill with heart trouble and my grandma with high blood pressure, it makes us be in fear and trembling....now I enter into an medical association as an intern, haha , what most excited me is I got an SPO2 monitor and an blood pressure monitor! I think those kinds of disease are very popular in the olders. Now we feel these equipments for home use are very helpful!!!

I found some useful medical divice for home use in this web below to share with everyone.
http://www.globalmedproduct.com Do you find this valuable?    

amcunningham
20. RE: discussion forums in medical education
Dec 17 2009, 11:46 AM EST | Post edited: Dec 17 2009, 11:46 AM EST
Hello- we use Blackboard in Cardiff and I have used it a lot for discussion boards. I actually wanted to engender more contact with students, not less, but didn't want to use emails as I worried about repition. Lots of students used the discussion board but often asked similar questions. I think this was party because the search in Blackboard's discussion board is pretty useless.

Now I am about to start experimenting with Confluence by Atlassian. I'll let yo know how I get on. It is a wiki, but I think I could use it as a discussion board- and because it allows pages to be 'watched' it would be possible to get notifications of replies etc. Do you find this valuable?    
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