Exam task :-D

Examensarbete Students

The dental students select which projects they would like to pursue for their examensarbete work after an Inspiration Day and brief conversations with the project leaders. The Inspiration Day is a whole long day of presentations by the 6 or 7 Units within the Dental School; endodontic, pediatrics and the Oral Biology research unit etc. Presentations are normally by PowerPoint and given by the Head of each Unit and each has 15mins to present all the various projects underway. This is a lot of information to take in and by the end of the day the students are very tired and bored! The Oral Biology Unit is always last!

In addition, attracting dental students to laboratory based projects for their exam work is very difficult as many think it requires too much time and additional work compared to a study where they write questionnaires and collect data. There is also the aspect in that they do not come into contact with patients. So as a result very few students are interested in doing their projects within the basic sciences, therefore how can we attract the students in this short amount of time?

Considering the information and skills that I have acquired over the past week I have many new ideas on how to attract the students to the lab projects but also how we can formulate a program and present ideas and resources to the students to aid in their issues described above.

Firstly how to attract the students, well instead of giving a few slides to our Head of Unit to present along with all the other research groups, we could put together a short film, an advert if you will, with an introduction to our work, with images and movies. Showing us at work in the lab, the different methods we use, how we interact as a group and hopefully this will make our research stand out and grab the students interest so that will investigate the option of a research project at the least. This should wake them up after a long day!!! In the very least this information given to the students, whether it be slides or a movie should be available to them to look at after the Inspiration Day so that they can reflect – at present it is not.

A second problem is that as their time is very limited for their exam project work and they can only really dedicate 1 day a week to start with, so there is essentially very little contact with the student but once they have elected to do their project with us PingPong and KI Commons could then be combined to design a resource for the students to obtain information, protocols, keep up to date with the project overview. It will be an easy way for us to exchange information and using the discussion forums ask questions, share information and so on. One of the aspects of their exam work is to keep a record of what they have been doing concerning their project and a blog would be an excellent way to do this and reflect on their project – where things have gone well, if a mistake was made with the protocol, brain storm new ideas for example. This could be easily implemented as it would be down to me and my group but would be of benefit to however many students we have each year. Of course new students start their exam project work with you each year and so the students who are further through with the program can even act as mentors to the newer ones starting and share their knowledge and experiences.

You never know but eventually we may even attract some of the students to come back and study further for a PhD for example instead of heading out to drill fill and bill !!!

Day 4 - Videos and sounds

What have I learnt today?  How to make and edit movies! How to add sound to presentations and movies!Brilliant!! It's so easy!!! I always stayed away from things like this - too technical I thought but I've learnt so many tips and tricks it's not hard at all!!! Why have I been so scared?? Maybe I thought it took too much time??

I'm not too keen on listening to my own voice that's been recorded but I don't always have to speak there are times when it's good to be quiet :) This is definately something that I can use and will use (see my exam task for more on this).

It's been a fantastic course, I'm really glad I signed up and I've learnt so much in such a short time!

Day 3 - Powerpoint and pictures

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay for the end of the group session and the digital storytelling this afternoon, so I can only comment on the picture and powerpoint sessions but let's face it powerpoint has to be one of the programs that I use most - whether it be teaching, poster design or conference talks. I've been using powerpoint for such a long time, I think I had got set in my ways and use the same formats/functions, and the tips and tricks gave me a good push (or shuve rather) to look at how I present things with a fresh new perspective.

Picture editing is something I do all the time whether it's work related or not (actually at the moment not -family want to see pictures of the girls all the time)!! I really liked the picnik and picasa sites, they were so easy to use and the fact that you can link between the two of them is great - a real plus if you are working between home and the lab. I've previously used photoshop or picture manage but I don't really feel that these are user friendly or give me the features that I need. I teach the a lot of histology and so it is vital that I have good quality images as my classes are very visually oriented. In the "old" days the students would sit with sections and a microscope but now it is so much easier for them to have the images on a website to navigate through and they can work anytime of the day or night- although it's not the same as sitting with a microscope............  I've also been reflecting and asimulating the information I've got over the past few days beacuase we've got a lot and I really needed to think through how I could use it. I'm thinking it would be a great way for the students to work through their histology exercises as groups and setting up Wiki's for their projects........it would be a first small step.

Oh and I've finally got to grips with Twitter after spending a little time on it :-)

Assignment 1a

A little late addition but there we go!

I use various teaching methods are employed for undergraduate teaching, including supervision of lab-based projects, formal lectures, interactive seminars and workshops and computer-assisted learning (CAL).  The students have mainly been from the Department of Dental Medicine within the Dental Program but across different stages of their education; e.g. Term 1 students receive formal lectures within the Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB) program, Term 4 students have lectures, seminars and CAL sessions (Virtual Histology) within Oral Pathology and Histology (OHP), some Term 5 students do laboratory-based studies; and Term 6 students have seminars and workshops to aid their preparation for exam projects. The number of hours per semester varies but it can be from 5 to 15hrs. The sizes of the classes vary considerably; CMB and OPH programs can be up to 95 students (divided in two for CAL sessions) to small groups for the lab-based courses and the seminars (5-20 students).

Again a variety of different teaching methods are used to educate postgraduate students, and continuing and advanced education programs for dentists undergoing specialist training; including lectures, seminars, workshops and laboratory demonstrations. I have been responsible for organising and coordinating postgraduate courses, such as Clinical Cell Transplantation and Cell Signaling in Craniofacial Development. More recently, I was asked to act as Joint Coordinator for the Postgraduate Program in Regenerative Medicine, which is part of the Karolinska Institutet Tissue and Motion Network.

As an educator, my goal is to communicate my knowledge and experience to the students, to facilitate their learning and understanding, whether be through up-front lectures, small group seminars or one-to-one bench-side laboratory teaching. I try to achieve this by focusing on student-based education so that the students take responsibility for their own learning. I draw upon a number of different activities or approaches within classes to provide a dynamic, interesting and varied environment by which to achieve deep learning. One example in the OPH program during the formal lectures, I involve the students in sessions by asking questions and I include various activities, and I incorporate multi-media presentations into the classes. These activities pave the way to Virtual Histology sessions, where the students examine and subsequently present histological specimens to their fellow classmates.

Tuesday - Day2- The world of Wikis

Why has it taken me such a long time to find out about such things? I never considered myself technophobic but maybe I have been??

Ok so I missed this morning so I only have this afternoon to talk about.  Wikis - the potential.........were do I start. These are going to be of great use for some of my classes and so easy to use. Initial ideas that are running around - I could use them as a kind of database for protocols for my lab-based courses but the main impact could well be in the project and group work activities for the students, especially the exam project students. I can follow their contributions but also have some degree of control to guide them if they are heading in the wrong direction. It's not something that I can integrate straight away but will need careful planning and of course it will be a new way of the students working. I would still use pingpog, the two together offer very different things but can complement each other.

I also started to twitter yesterday - something I never thought I'd do, I'm not one for sharing my every thought with everyone and I have to say I was a bit disappointed. It was easy enough to twitter but I found it really hard to find people I know on there...........maybe someone out there can help???

End of the first day!!!

It's been a long and intense day - especially since I've been up so long but I feel like I've been opened up to a whole new way of thinking! Of course I knew about Ping Pong, and I'd used it on a course before - 2or 3 years ago but since then I haven't looked at it, haven't needed to really. But today has really opened my eyes to what the program can do and what I should be doing with the program. I never realised that there were so many functions hidden away - not that I had taken time before to really look. Time I suppose and lack of need but times are changing, courses are changing and so are the students, and this will be a new way to approach our outreach to the students.
At the moment I can think of a few new ways to incorporate this into my teaching plans - especially the postgraduate courses that I'm responsible for - it will make life a lot easier to organise the courses and teaching materials (which makes me wonder why  haven't used this before - nobody to blame but me but we live and learn and have courses like this). If I'm running a postgraduate course then  can make use of all the functions - literature resources, organise group work, discussion forums but I stumble more over how I can use this for my undergraduate teaching. Well I have ideas and new thoughts of how I could use it but my concern is how to get the course leaders and teachers who are a little more traditional and dare I say it set in their ways to try and incorporate these new ideas and approaches. Well that will be my task - they say Rome was never built in a day so it will be small steps to stimulate discussion and to encourage the use of this system. Talking to other course participants, I feel that we are trailing very much behind some of the other faculties in using IT in their teaching programs - keeping to tried and tested (but not necessarily better) teaching methods - I hope I can help to change this.

First day IT education course

So, the first morning of the IT course - many thoughts as to what it will hold but for now will finish setting it up :-)