Year two

Research in Clinical Education

This course will address the conduct of research in clinical education.  It will enable you to be an engaged consumer of research and prepare those students progressing to completion of a research project.  On completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Define and undertake a systematic search of the clinical education literature.
• Critically appraise published clinical education literature and research.
• Compare and contrast different methodologies used in clinical education research.
• Apply understanding of ethical concepts, issues and processes in research in Clinical Education.
• Design a coherent research study, including defining a gap in the existing literature, formulating a research question, articulating the methodology and selecting appropriate research methods.

Simulation Methodology for Clinical Education

The aim of this course is to develop participants from a novice to a competent/proficient facilitator in utilising clinical simulation as a learning tool.  On completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Critically engage with the relevant learning theories that inform simulation education as a methodology.
• Formulate a constructively aligned simulation programme.
• Demonstrate an effective debrief in the context of an immersive simulation scenario.

Teaching Online in a Professional Context

This course introduces online key strategies for online teaching.  It considers the development of approaches to teaching online and relates these to relevant educational theory.  The course is designed to allow students to make explicit links to their own professional practice, conceptualising online learning as a socially meaningful, embodied experience.  On completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Explore the challenges and complexity in developing online teaching in professional contexts.
• Develop strategies for creating an engaged learning community online.
• Critically analyse the use of learning analytics and approaches to the evaluation of teaching.
• Critically reflect on online feedback and assessment practices.
• Develop approaches to online teaching that consider equality and diversity of learners.

Personal and Professional Development for Practice

This course aims to explore personal and professional development for clinicians/practitioners within clinical and educational contexts and roles. 

Participants will reflect on their own development and educational needs both as a clinician/practitioner and as an educator. They will consider the rationale for continuing professional development (CPD) and its impact upon their own career, colleagues, patients and students. Participants will contextualise CPD, examine the factors which might influence an individual's engagement with the process and consider support strategies.

On completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Critically appraise the literature and theories underpinning personal professional development (PPD).
• Evaluate the processes and tools used to support PPD.
• Clarify the environmental factors which enable or constrain staff development.
• Design a PPD plan and reflect upon its potential to impact upon career, colleagues, patients and students.
• Explain the relationship between personal and professional development (PPD) and the organisational systems in which it takes place.

Clinical Education and Digital Culture

This course is to help participants gain critical awareness of technology’s contribution to the learning, teaching and training environment and invites reflection and evaluation of what it means to be a clinical educator and practitioner within a highly digitalised culture.  The overarching approach will be to frame questions currently relevant within the general domain of study and invite critical engagement, reflection and considered response through tutorials, discussion boards and a blog. This dialogic approach is in keeping with a need to respond to emerging issues as well as aligning with and providing experience of recent developments in digital education. As such, tutorials will be expected to run as group discussions with debate around issues relevant to the lecture, rather than a Q & A session with the lecturer.

On completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Critically evaluate the potential implications of digital technology on workplace culture and education in clinical settings.
• Propose effective solutions to complex technological challenges in healthcare education.
• Use digital media to enhance their professional profile as a clinical educator.

Policy, Leadership and Management 

This course will engage with some general concepts about policy, leadership and change management with a view to exploring their significance in determining the nature and quality of clinical education.  On completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Adopt a critical and analytical approach to policy in clinical education.
• Relate a variety of models and principles of leadership and management to their own work context.
• Critically reflect on leadership and management approaches they have seen or used.
• Apply appropriate change management strategies.
• Critically review the relationship between clinical education and service improvement.

Current Issues in Clinical Education

This course is aimed at experienced, practising healthcare professionals with an educational remit.  The aim is to allow students to undertake an in-depth study into a topical area of their choice in clinical education, allowing  them to develop their research skills, produce an informed, evidence-based position paper and engage in academic debate.  On completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Identify a topical area in clinical education and undertake an in-depth period of independent study in the area of their choice.
• Critically engage with, and evaluate the literature in the area of choice.
• Synthesise information gathered, selection of relevant points and distillation to produce a short position paper.
• Lead an online seminar and communicate key findings to peer group.
• Actively engage in peer assessment.