This study aims to challenge the traditional tutor based teaching of practical skills in the Clinical Skills Centre and other experimental settings. The concept of learning was changed to “blended” as the teachers constructed an online task as preparation for the practical lessons. The online lessons consisted of a combination of videopodcasts and e-tests.
Summary of work
The project included designing production standards for “practical skills videopodcasts - setup and content”, rethinking curriculum, implementation of the videos, and understanding the teacher’s role. The evaluation included student questionnaires and the teacher evaluations.
Summary of results
Students generally evaluated that the use of videos enhanced their performance and the learning outcomes. Teachers tell that the face-to-face lessons became more efficient due to the new standards for student preparation. The results also show that podcasts interact positively with the students’ Personal Learning Environment (PLE) and gives us a hint on how students manage their learning process using the videopodcasts both for preparation and for additional purposes as well. Students underlined the importance of the validity of the videopodcasts we produce ourselves in contrast to what they can browse on the internet.
Conclusions
Students seem to perform better and have more time to practice the clinical skills in class when preparation includes videopodcasts. The students willingly use the instructional videos in their self-organized studies after the tutorial sessions.
Take-home message
The use of videopodcasts in blended learning around clinical skills training is considered to be of great importance among students and teachers.