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Two Pills Tips: Owning Online Learning and Teaching!

8m · Take Two Pills and listen to this podcast · 29 Apr 00:00

Online teaching…am I doing this right? 

 

Resources: 

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/11/15/peer-advice-instructors-teaching-online-first-time 

https://hub.jhu.edu/2020/03/12/how-to-teach-online-courses-coronavirus-response/ 

 

 

Hopefully, everyone has made it through the initial shock of a quick switch to online course delivery. As we wrap up our final lectures of the semester, I just wanted to give some tips on how to infuse a great deal of active learning into our new environment. Will teaching be the same as it was in January? No. Will it be perfect? No. Will students learn a great deal and faculty enjoy teaching? Yes! Feel free to send us an email if you have some great tips for a transition to online active learning! 

 

Create community: One of the major hurdles for online learning (and our current quarantine restrictions) is isolation. I read one comparison of learning to exercising. If you go to group classes in the gym, you are motivated, you have a sense of community, and you commit to showing up with the others in the class. If you have a treadmill, it is on YOU to show up and power through. It’s easier to make excuses and inadvertently miss deadlines. With online course delivery, we do not necessarily have the classroom to be our group setting. We need to emphasize the sense of community that we are providing students, just in a different way.   

We need to build connected, caring communities for our online students and the extent to which we respond and provide reassurance that we are here for them goes a long way in establishing relationships and building a sense of trust. It is amazing how receptive students are to quick email turnaround! Feedback should be timely as well, and specifically targeted to the work product being submitted. 

The dialogue should be varied and can include video chatting, discussion boards, emails and comments providing feedback on assignments. An advantage of using such methods is that the students need to log in to the course frequently, and frequent log-ins help keep students on track and aware of assignment due dates. The ultimate goal is for the students to feel that they are part of a collaborative atmosphere with the professor as well as other students. This helps with the retention and performance of students in the course. 

This can also be reaching out to your students, especially if they are your advisees. They may be facing housing instability, food insecurity, financial issues, health issues for themselves or family members, etc. Additionally, if you notice a significant change in how a student is performing in the course, it would be worth it to reach out to them or have their advisor reach out. I teach a course for students early in the program and I reached out to those who are less successful. With this change and how early they are in the program, they may be unaware of resources available or less likely to ask for help and feel that they need to “tough it out.”  

 

Advanced preparation: This switch to online delivery requires even more preparation than live in-classroom teaching.  

-How do you want to interact with students? 

-Message board? Voice thread? Chat box? Have them unmute? Raise their hands? 

For full episode notes and info visit www.twopillspodcast.com

The episode Two Pills Tips: Owning Online Learning and Teaching! from the podcast Take Two Pills and listen to this podcast has a duration of 8:16. It was first published 29 Apr 00:00. The cover art and the content belong to their respective owners.

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Happy fall y’all! Two Pills Podcast is back from summer break and better than ever!

Resources: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5339583/ 

https://ep.bmj.com/content/105/4/236 

 

Can you increase your confidence (intervals) in teaching biostatistics?! 

 

Oh, biostatistics. A subject that strikes fear into anyone studying for an exam that contains them, someone presenting a journal club, or even analyzing your own data for research. Today, I am going to be describing a systematic approach to biostatistics that may help you in teaching the content and help your students with application. 

 

Healthcare professionals are required to continuously update their knowledge; therefore, our students need the skills for life-long learning, as well as an appreciation for the scientific method. Biostatistics is the “basic science” of quantitative evaluation of evidence and students will need to require evidence for methods of: prevention, diagnosis, and therapy/management in the treatment of medical conditions. Students need to know how to interpret diagnostic procedures and apply them to individual patients. Students need to develop the skills to read the medical literature with confidence in their ability to evaluate the validity of articles. 

 

Often, students are taught biostatistics in a lecture-based format. When I was taught biostats in professional school, I think I had last seen statistics in high school during AP statistics. As we’ll discuss, repetition is key for understanding and applying biostatistics. After they initially learn about biostatistics, their first presentations on statistical analysis may be in the high-pressure environment of a journal club. I think we have all seen the spectrum of confidence that students have when presenting statistics in a journal club.  

 

I first became interested in augmenting my teaching of biostatistics in an interprofessional setting. I was working with a medical residency and they wanted to increase the structure of their journal club/biostatistics curriculum. The milestones that I attempted to address were: 

PBLI -1: Locates, appraises, and assimilates evidence from scientific studies related to the patients’ health problems  

Level 1: Describes basic concepts in clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, and clinical reasoning Categorizes the design of a research study  

Level 2: Identifies pros and cons of various study designs, associated types of bias, and patient-centered outcomes Formulates a searchable question from a clinical question Evaluates evidence-based point-of-care resources  

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Level 4: Incorporates principles of evidence-based care and information mastery into clinical practice 

Level 5: Independently teaches and assesses evidence based medicine and information mastery techniques 


Resources: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5339583/ 

https://ep.bmj.com/content/105/4/236 

For full episode notes and more information, visit www.twopillspodcast.com

Two Pills Podcast: Increase Your Confidence (interval) Teaching Biostatistics!

Happy fall y’all! Two Pills Podcast is back from summer break and better than ever!

Resources: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5339583/ 

https://ep.bmj.com/content/105/4/236 

 

Can you increase your confidence (intervals) in teaching biostatistics?! 

 

Oh, biostatistics. A subject that strikes fear into anyone studying for an exam that contains them, someone presenting a journal club, or even analyzing your own data for research. Today, I am going to be describing a systematic approach to biostatistics that may help you in teaching the content and help your students with application. 

 

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Often, students are taught biostatistics in a lecture-based format. When I was taught biostats in professional school, I think I had last seen statistics in high school during AP statistics. As we’ll discuss, repetition is key for understanding and applying biostatistics. After they initially learn about biostatistics, their first presentations on statistical analysis may be in the high-pressure environment of a journal club. I think we have all seen the spectrum of confidence that students have when presenting statistics in a journal club.  

 

I first became interested in augmenting my teaching of biostatistics in an interprofessional setting. I was working with a medical residency and they wanted to increase the structure of their journal club/biostatistics curriculum. The milestones that I attempted to address were: 

PBLI -1: Locates, appraises, and assimilates evidence from scientific studies related to the patients’ health problems  

Level 1: Describes basic concepts in clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, and clinical reasoning Categorizes the design of a research study  

Level 2: Identifies pros and cons of various study designs, associated types of bias, and patient-centered outcomes Formulates a searchable question from a clinical question Evaluates evidence-based point-of-care resources  

Level 3: Applies a set of critical appraisal criteria to different types of research, including synopses of original research findings, systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and clinical practice guidelines Critically evaluates information from others, including colleagues, experts, and pharmaceutical representatives, as well as patient-delivered information  

Level 4: Incorporates principles of evidence-based care and information mastery into clinical practice 

Level 5: Independently teaches and assesses evidence based medicine and information mastery techniques 


Resources: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5339583/ 

https://ep.bmj.com/content/105/4/236 

For full episode notes and more information, visit www.twopillspodcast.com

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Resources: 

https://news.cengage.com/higher-education/survey-about-half-of-faculty-are-more-positive-about-online-learning-today-than-pre-pandemic-and-expect-to-keep-new-teaching-techniques-and-digital-materials-in-place-post-pandemic/ 

 

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Stats: 

half of faculty (51 percent) are more positive about online learning today than pre-pandemic. Most faculty (71 percent) said their teaching in Fall 2020 was “very different” or included a “number of changes” and almost half (47 percent) expect those changes to remain post-pandemic...

For full episode notes and resources visit us at www.twopillspodcast.com 

Two Pills Tip: Video Assignments!

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Having students create short, video content for online learning can increase STEM self‐efficacy (Campbell et al., 2020), and thus, making student content part of the course can be beneficial. 

 

Students are (generally) VERY comfortable creating videos-Snapchat, TikTok, Reels, etc 

 

Assign via link, immediately asks student to record, goes into folder you design for this assignment, student lists their unique link as answer to quiz 

 

Practice, edit, assign short videos 

 

Many different options-students can even set up a zoom meeting by themselves (I often do this so that I can have a creative virtual background), for informal, can just record on their phone and upload...

For full episode notes and resources visit us at www.twopillspodcast.com

Two Pills Tip: Video Assignments!

Two Pills Tip: Video Assignments!

 

Having students create short, video content for online learning can increase STEM self‐efficacy (Campbell et al., 2020), and thus, making student content part of the course can be beneficial. 

 

Students are (generally) VERY comfortable creating videos-Snapchat, TikTok, Reels, etc 

 

Assign via link, immediately asks student to record, goes into folder you design for this assignment, student lists their unique link as answer to quiz 

 

Practice, edit, assign short videos 

 

Many different options-students can even set up a zoom meeting by themselves (I often do this so that I can have a creative virtual background), for informal, can just record on their phone and upload...

For full episode notes and resources visit us at www.twopillspodcast.com

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