| An Interview with Helen Winter and Jane Matters |
| (“Inter” refers to the interviewer, “Winter”
refers to Helen Winter, "Matters" refers to Jane Matters)
|
| Inter: |
… Helen and Jane. To get the context with the
use of your digital media and online technology to support teaching
and learning – I'm very interested in the overall context
of your teaching. So to begin with I just wondered whether you could
explain the units that you teach in in the Dietetics and Nutrition
program and what their general purposes are. |
| Winter: |
We teach into the units that the students do in third and fourth
year which is a focus on the transition to professional practice.
So it's really focusing on developing the sort knowledge,
skill and attributes that the students need to the professional
dietetics. |
| Inter: |
Okay, so these units make a particularly unique contribution to
the development of professional capacities or attributes. |
| Winter: |
Practice. |
| Inter: |
Helen, would you like to, I mean explain a little bit about, you
know, the types of attributes you think are important in regard
to the teaching of your units? |
| Matters: |
I guess the biggest change the students have to make is they have
to go from being a student to being a professional. So they've
got to be organised, they've got to be client centred rather
than sort of self centred I guess. So they've got to really
put their client first and meet their needs. And there's a
whole range of competencies that DAA set out that we have to meet
and that's all part of our course being accredited. |
| Inter: |
Okay, and DAA is the …? |
| Matters: |
Dietitians' Association of Australia. |
| Inter: |
And what sort of knowledge, skills and attitudes do you assume
of your students coming in to do these practicum based units? |
| Matters: |
Yeah, well they need to have done basic science. So the first
two years of the course is really their basic science and then they
haven't got a lot of specific clinical skills so we've
got to teach them the dietetic process and focus more on the I guess
turning that theory into how you use it within … |
| Winter: |
So they've got a strong knowledge of nutrition via chemistry
and physiology but they don't have anything about applied
nutrition knowledge so dietetics and management of clinical conditions
or the interview process or counselling clients or trying to get
behaviour changed. So they, they have the physiology and a good
solid basis of nutrition but they don't really apply that
to a dietetics situation until our units. |
| Inter: |
So once they're in the units, what are the types of teaching
strategy? What's happening kind of at the micro nitty gritty
level in regards to the way you work with the students in developing
these attributes? |
| Matters: |
Well we want to make it as authentic as possible. So we try and
prepare them for what they're going to experience when they're
out on their placements. So we try and bring that into the classroom.
So, for instance, I guess they know all about like food law and
labelling but then trying to explain a label and what it means to
a person who's got heart disease – that's what
they've got to be able to do. |
| Winter: |
And they know about the risk factors for heart disease and that
high cholesterol – they know the physiology and biochemistry
of how cholesterol impacts on heart disease but they've never
actually had to explain that to a client who has heart disease who
needs to lower their cholesterol and change their diet. So we try
and put them in situations – we're actually working
with real clients to teach them those sorts of skills. |
| Inter: |
And what's the role of them working with each other in developing
those skills – the sort of collaborative learning aspect of
it. |
| Matters: |
I guess a part of that is really overcoming their fear. Like when
their going out on to a placement for the first time, they're
quite scared and so the buddy system is really for some personal
support, isn't it, just to get them over that but also to
be able to get some feedback. So you've got this independent
observer, this critical friend, who'll say you used a lot
of jargon, I could see that the person wasn't understanding
what you were saying, you didn't pick up on that cue –
those kind of things. |
| Winter: |
And they learn by if they someone else doing it then they take
note and it influences their own practice. If they see that it doesn't
work with another student doing it then they tend to try and change
it themselves and so it's giving each other feedback, learning
from each other and in tutorial sessions, where they're in
groups here at university, it's very much an exchange of ideas
and working together on problems. |
| Inter: |
And how do you go about formally assessing the learning outcomes
in regard to the practical skill development side of the unit? How
do you make judgments about whether they're actually improving
their professional skills in the area dealing with clients? |
| Matters: |
Well the assessment's pretty careful, isn't it? |
| Winter: |
Yeah. |
| Matters: |
I mean we make sure that the assessment is a nutrition care plan
so we're not asking them to write an essay about anything.
It's really – they've got to think of the care. |
| Winter: |
Yeah, so there's a whole range of assessment tasks that
match what we consider to be the learning objectives of the unit.
So if it's written documentation of their patient management,
then that's exactly what they have to provide to us and that
would be the sort of thing they'd have to keep if they were
working in a hospital to hand over to other professionals. They
have to do oral presentations of cases so that's the sort
of thing that they would do as working as a dietitian. They have
to give presentations sometimes as if their colleagues are people
with diabetes or people with heart disease. So they have to develop
a group sort of program as if the rest of the class are participating
as patients in that program. And they are also assessed in their
final year on placement by their supervisors to demonstrate that
they can actually manage a dietetic workload in a placement situation. |
| Inter: |
And I believe you're very committed to the idea of developing
professionals reflecting on their learning and their professional
development. What sort of strategies can you use to actually get
them to think very carefully, reflect and document their own attribute
developments? |
| Winter: |
Well the first thing we do when they start in the third year with
our unit is to submit a reflective practice journal, electronically,
to either of their tutors every week and not everyone does that
but most of them do at some stage through the semester and we respond
to those as soon as we get them. So we give them feedback to try
and encourage them to keep submitting them. Then we get them to
actually fill out their own assessment form that they have to complete
with their supervisor on placement. So they have to think about
where they need to work and what they're doing well before
they talk to their supervisor about it, and for the first time this
year we've actually had them submit a reflective practice
journal about their client interaction which is assessed as part
of their client interaction which is assessed as part of their assessment
and we're looking in that for evidence that not only have
they thought about what they've done but they've thought
about strategies to actually improve that or where to go from here.
So it's the first time it's actually being assessed. |
| Matters: |
Sometimes when they send us their reflective journals and there's
these really key issues or we can see that there's a whole
bunch of themes around a common issue we'll ask one of the
students to raise it on DSO and then once it's out there there's
a group discussion around it too, yeah. |
| Inter: |
Okay, in terms of another teaching strategy – I know you've
used problem based learning which took you into the whole area of
the use of digital media and online – what attracted you to
the idea of a problem based learning approach? I mean how do you
define that and what's the value in it for you? |
| Winter: |
I guess we looked at the overall course and decided that it wasn't,
the way it used to be delivered was not terribly in line with adult
sort of learning principles – it was very segregated in terms
of theory and practice were quite separate, there was on campus
lectures and then they went on to placement. So there wasn't
a lot of integration of learning at those two places and problem
based learning was really just the means we decided to use to enhance
their learning, make it more active from the students' point
of view, make it self-directed learning, use the collaborative group
process. So it just fit sort of all the sorts of things that we
were trying to adopt in the course, we thought fitted really well
with problem based learning and it had been used successfully in
other health education courses or allied health courses. |
| Inter: |
So in terms of PBL being used but then moving into this digital
online environment, and I think your first foray into this may have
been PBL – A touch of sugar. How did you become involved in
doing that particular PBL scenario? |
| Matters: |
Well [Sue Milner], who was here before us, got a grant of $10
000 and it was kind of her idea that we should make this authentic
learning tool because we realised that it was getting harder and
harder to place students and we wanted to still have that authentic
learning but in a different sort of forum here. So we went for it,
but I must say we won't do it again. I think … |
| Winter: |
Not in that same format. It was a very, very detailed case and
I think it's good to give the students a variety of media
that they learn from but our students very much enjoy the integration
and the way we started with that online case was that students could
work at it completely independently without any sort of interaction
with anyone else and the students found that they missed out on
that. So we've actually adapted it a little bit so that we
introduce it in a small group forum, like a tutorial, and then they
work on it at their own pace at home and be introduced to it in
a small group forum. I mean the students rate it quite well in terms
of enjoyment … |
| Matters: |
But it lacks that sort of oral communication with a person which
I think our later forays have been more about teaching clinics of
having an actor here or having a really authentic learning where
they're actually, if they get a client who wants to reduce
their risk of heart disease they follow them up. So the more real
it is the better, and in a way I think the online isn't meeting
our needs as much as … |
| Winter: |
I think it's changed though. We use online a lot, just differently
to how we first envisaged it. |
| Inter: |
A lot of people can jump into the idea of the digital and online
and yes we'll use PBL as a secondary consideration, but there
seems to be a big challenge in coming up with the right types of
authentic scenarios to begin with. What do you see as the balance
there between the rush into digital and online technology as opposed
to being very clear about the rationale of the teaching strategy
and with PBL having true authentic scenarios being presented? |
| Matters: |
Well they've definitely got to be as authentic as possible
– that's for sure. And you can't just, I don't
think you could do that and still have didactic lectures. Liked
it only worked because it was part of a whole week's program,
wasn't it, where they had a tute and self directed study time
and … |
| Winter: |
I think it needs to be in combination with real life interaction
with clients because I mean that's what our PBL was about.
Our PBL was about managing a patient with diabetes and on its own
it lacks a bit but in, I think if you had that in conjunction with
the students have the opportunity to talk to someone real about
diabetes at the same time then that would work really nicely. And
we are sort of tossing around how we might introduce or change a
bit but still have online component for students. We're trying
to look at how we can actually get that linked in with real patients
and, you know, potentially we're just sort of tossing around
the idea at the moment is can we actually get real clients who are
online so the students communicate with them online. |
| Inter: |
In terms of other components of the online environment beyond
PBL – you know you run a number of online quizzes and you
run fairly elaborate online discussion spaces – would you
like to comment on those aspects of your online teaching and learning
environment? I mean how did you set them up and how do you actually
work them to be a good learning experience? |
| Matters: |
We were talking about this before that there's kind of a
balance between how much we actually started off. You know it takes
some good questions and we draw on things that are really happening
to do with nutrition … |
| Winter: |
For the discussion component of it. |
| Matters: |
Yeah, yeah, so something that's happened on Today Tonight
you know will just trigger off some discussion. So we begin that,
but then as the semester goes in we kind of back out of it and the
students take it over. |
| Inter: |
How do you deal with maybe very sensitive, controversial issues
where there might be a little bit of angst or heat coming through
the online discussion? Have you had that experience? |
| Matters: |
Yes. |
| Inter: |
And how do you try and moderate that to a constructive outcome? |
| Winter: |
Not towards each other. The students are very, very supportive
of each other and if something comes up that they don't necessarily
agree with they're really quite constructive but saying that
that's not necessarily how they saw it or that sort of thing.
So we're quite diplomatic really online but there have been
issues that we know that some of the students have brought up that
they feel we should address in a lecture format or something like
that and I think we just keep talking through it with them and keep
encouraging them to use DSO as their discussion point. The students
are excellent at contributing to those discussions usually and the
discussions range from topical issues like A Current Affair to lecture
content type issues to problems they have on placement to just the
varied activities they're doing on placement. They're
really, really active in that discussion. |
| Matters: |
But I think the issues that they feel passionate about are the
best ones because they're the ones that keep getting discussed
and, in fact, we had a really nice example of that this year where
a student, you know, it was all about should you feed somebody or
not. Was there ever a point where you just shouldn't feed
someone and just let them die – you know, a pretty passionate
moral issue and all that sort of thing. And the discussion went
on DSO and we saw it coming through in some of their assessments,
their major case studies that they chose to do, they were exploring
those issues there as well. So they're the best. |
| Inter: |
And the online quizzes seem to adopt a variety of quizzing formats.
What was the rationale behind that? |
| Winter: |
Yes, this is the first year that we've put those up and
every week during our PBL block the students are given a new topic.
So it might be gastrointestinal disease one week, oncology the next
week, nutrition support, and they have tutorials, they have workshops,
they go to hospitals for tutorials, but there's always a concern
with problem based learning that knowledge might get lost, that
they might not be getting core knowledge. And so we've put
those quizzes up purely as self assessment. So the students had
a check point that they hadn't gone through the week and missed
the critical, important knowledge type issues. So we haven't,
at this point, formally evaluated the use of those. Most of the
students did them throughout the time and they could get marks back
on them. So it was really just for the students really so they could
just check that each week they were up to date and they've
got a good handle on the content of that week. So I'm not
quite sure where we'll go with those next year. I think we'll
keep them probably in the format they are at the moment because
we don't want to be marking them – they're not
part of the assessment, it's just purely for students. |
| Matters: |
And quite a few students said 'oh look I'll do those
close to the exams'. I think they were seeing them as a bit
of a practice run. |
| Inter: |
Do you see anything out in the big wide world that ideally if
you had the resources or the time or you were thinking about visions
for the future that you'd like to do with online or digital? |
| Matters: |
Dale, we've got just the project for it. You're not
allowed out the door until we get this one done. |
| Winter: |
Well there's a couple of things. I mean, firstly, it may
be in the future that some of these like the Principles of Dietetics,
which is our third year unit, there may be the opportunity to put
that as an off campus unit in future in which case an online component
would have to be developed and we may look at developing some smaller
Touch of Sugar type cases so that they're, as I said, in conjunction
with perhaps students doing some sort of placement activity. But
we're also looking at the moment at a program and seeing whether
there's any opportunities for doctors in the local community,
who have clients who are perhaps overweight and need some nutrition
intervention, whether we can actually link the students up online
with those clients so that the students are doing nutrition counselling
but it's in an online environment. So the clients don't
actually have to come to Deakin, they don't have to make appointments,
the timing's flexible, that sort of thing. So I think that's
something we'd really like to explore at the moment. |
| Inter: |
It's probably a question from left field, but I'm
really interested in the whole area of critical information literacy
and particularly being digitally literate in regard to being a good
professional. Do you see particular challenges in dietetics education
in regard to educating students to be able to assess the value of
information that they can pick up on the web? |
| Winter: |
Absolutely. |
| Matters: |
Yeah. |
| Winter: |
And we've had both extremes. We've have students who
won't touch anything on the web because they think it's
all, you know, a bit shonky and we've had students that treat
it like it's a gospel truth – everything on the web
is okay and out there for their use and dissemination. But that's
just part and parcel. I think now, you know some students still
have difficulty trying to decide which written hard copy type literature
is valid and, you know, assessing research papers for their validity
and all those sorts of issues. So I think it's just something
we have to address from very early in their university course, from
first year right through, so they can assess online information
just as easily as they can assess any other sorts of information. |
| Matters: |
It's a particular issue for our students, though, because
once they get out on placement they start just copying what they
are seeing their supervisors doing instead of critically thinking
about it. And so we do have an assessment where they've got
to look at a case and also do literature reviews just to try and
make sure that they are seeing is this the best practice, is this
what's out there in the literature and linking it. But we
do come across this 'I've just done it because that's
what we're doing on placement' issue, don't we?
So that is one for us. And I was thinking another way we use online
stuff is through the logs. The students have to actually document
all the number of patients they see …
|
| Winter: |
Activities. |
| Matters: |
Yeah, all their activities, and that's been really helpful
because often students who aren't doing too well – perhaps
they don't keep their logs as well or they're just seeing
less clients for whatever reason – so that's been a
good way to track their experiences. |
| Inter: |
And maybe as a final question, stepping back from just the online
and digital, I think you've both been validated as being very
good teachers in your professional field. What advice would you
give to younger developing academic staff in regard to developing
their expertise in tertiary teaching. |
| Winter: |
I guess that's a couple of things. One is that we actually
went and did … |
| Matters: |
Studied, yeah. |
| Winter: |
Yeah, did extra study in higher education and obviously the University's
addressing that now with all new staff having to do the Graduate
Certificate so they will be looking at their teaching, but we really
feel strongly about having a team teaching approach and it doesn't
have to be someone who's as intimately involved with the course
as we are in terms of teaching our students but I think having someone
else that you can bounce ideas off and you can discuss your evaluation
results and you can get some fresh ideas, is absolutely crucial
to keeping energy and enthusiasm and keeping the course fresh because
otherwise one year rolls into the next and rolls into the next and
you just don't change things, even if the evaluation's
telling you you should be changing something. |
| Matters: |
Yeah, you do, you need a critical friend, you know, someone to
peer review your teaching to say that bit was really good but this
bit could do with a change. So I think we're lucky because
we've got, it's worth how many units, six units, the
things we teach, so we can teach them together. |
| Winter: |
Yes, the workload's okay for us to teach in that sort of
environment but, you know, most people have someone else who's
contributing to the teaching in their unit be it just giving tutes
or something like that and we think that the opportunity to bounce
ideas off each other is really important. |
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