CHS Faculty: Blended Learning Arrangements [prior and during national lockdown]

CHS Faculty: Blended Learning Arrangements [prior and during national lockdown]

Monday, March 29, 2021

 

Lecturers in the CHS Faculty have created a total number of 330 online environments within the institutional Learning Management System, iKamva - during the 2020 academic year. Lecturers within the CHS Faculty have made use of various eTools, which includes Google Applications and iKamva (communication and assessments). 

Interactive Communication: Discussion Topics, Supervision,

The communication eTools used include Announcements, to keep students updated on administrative and content related tasks and activities.  The Discussion Forum was used as a communication tool for group engagement, supervision activities, and overall class discussions. Lecturers used the BigBlueButton (Meetings eTool) to facilitate lectures and discussions with students, sharing resources and bringing together speakers on different topics. 

Lessons aligned to Clinical Practicals

Online lessons were designed and aligned to module topics; and specific Clinical Practical outcomes & broad module outcomes.

Formative and summative assessments: Online Community block teaching module

Various assessments, specifically class and group assignments were structured online for student submissions. The Tests & Quizzes eTool has been used across disciplines for formative, as well as summative assessments. A community block teaching module was structured to allow for students who were unable to physically access their communities for fieldwork purposes.  The lecturers used the ‘Community Process’ document as a guideline for students regarding processes to follow in the communities. However, the assessment of learning was based on a selection of essay topics, rather than the traditional case study. The students submitted their reflective tasks to the Assignment eTool, which was also linked to Turnitin (anti-plagiarism platform).

e-IPE World Café Success Story: Collaborative online interactive session via iKamva (UWC & Stellenbosch University students)

The Interprofessional Education Unit (IPEU) hosted the first e-IPE World Café on 8 May 2020 via iKamva. As a result of the lockdown due to Covid-19, this event called for creative intervention to ensure that no student was disadvantaged due to a lack of data. UWC and Stellenbosch University students from Dietetics and Nutrition, Physiotherapy, Social Work, Natural Medicine, Biokinetics and Medicine engaged in a 2-hour session via iKamva. eTools used included that of the chat room to engage in real-time; use of lessons tool to guide students through activities; embedding and sharing of presentations and other resources; discussion forums for group engagement amongst peers and facilitators; and assignments.

Interdisciplinary Research Module

Lecturers within the CHS Faculty set up their online environment for the Interdisciplinary Research module which was offered over a period of two weeks with other lecturers across the CHS faculty. Topics were presented to students over 8 lectures including aspects of research methodology, approaches and ethics. Students engaged in their various disciplinary groups. At the end of this block teaching period, the students submitted assignments as individual groups, and also engaged in peer evaluation.