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Teachers also have the opportunity to enhance their classroom curriculum through hour externship opportunities. Externships are available based on funding and the application period is now open! Contact Celina Su at celina we-reachout. Complete the Externship Application form online. Health care providers volunteer their time through the health speakers bureau to come to the classroom and give a talk on their professional or area of expertise.
We have created a catalog of speakers which teachers may use to find an appropriate speaker for their class and make arrangements.
This program has been created for the explicit use of health pathway teachers and is not to be shared with other programs or school events. Select students will gain first-hand work experience, and to determine a career interest. Partnership working and IPE have a wide range of potential benefits ascribed to them,[ 11 ] but the evidence for the outcomes of both has some limitations.
An initial Cochrane Review[ 12 ] found no studies that met their strict inclusion criteria, while the updated review [ 13 ] identified six studies that met their criteria. Other work was excluded because of the heterogeneity of the IPE interventions and methodological limitations of the studies. These reviews have highlighted that there is a large volume of descriptive literature about the effectiveness of IPE, but much of this evidence lacks rigour in terms of measurable outcomes.
However, the expectations of IPE have risen, supported by its proponents without necessarily being accompanied by evidence that has strong methodology. The same could be said about the evidence for effectiveness of team working, although this is widely accepted as essential to quality care. A wide range of literature has reported the many factors that can influence team effectiveness, which can include structure, team roles and responsibilities, leadership, communication strategies, professional boundaries and values, as well as education, encompassing broad aspects of collaboration.
Headrick and Khaleel[24] assert that three strategies are key to educating future health professionals: WBL,wewould suggest, is a formof learning that incorporates all these elements. WBL is not a new concept. A key underpinning principle is adult learning. In adult learning there is recognition that the process of critically reflecting on and evaluating experiences is needed at an individual level through critical discourse and supportive relationships with fellow practitioners to support learning and development.
WBL approaches have been identified as addressing the needs of practitioners in matching the requirements of a rapidly changing health service and developing practice[30] by promoting learning that is practice driven. WBL draws on previously acquired formal knowledge, contextualises it and adapts it to the current context. The delivery of WBL can take many forms and focuses on the process rather than the product of learning. Practitioners take responsibility for identifying and exploring topics relevant to their individual, team and primary care context. These new ways of learning in practice contrast to the traditional transmission of information by utilising adult learning approaches, small group work and critical and active learning.
A positive culture of learning is required to support collaborative working and a commitment to working interprofessionally, across traditional boundaries. The organisational culture should foster trust, good communication and challenge existing practice.
Through critical reflection and evaluation of WBL there is potential for a changing frame of reference regarding professional identity, with practitioners being in a prime position to influence their professional communities. Successful WBL needs to engage practitioners able to recognise learning opportunities, and who are willing as well as able to communicate their professional knowledge. Collaborative practice, through which a team can evolve into a community of practice, is one route to engage practitioners in WBL.
As public services, both the NHS and Higher Education have a responsibility to recognise credit acquired from equivalent institutions and provide a vehicle for recognition of academic endeavour and public investment. Another dimension to recognising prior learning can be found in community nursing. An ageing workforce, particularly of district nurses and health visitors means that their initial preparation for practice in the community did not carry degree level credits, but new staff that are now supervised and trained qualify with degrees, resulting in the experienced staff feeling inferior, undervalued and unappreciated.
Being able to acknowledge their range of experiential learning and consolidate it towards a degree boosts morale and re-energises the workforce, which together with the opportunity to undertake a work based project, benefits the primary care team and gives added value to the academic award. The BSc Nursing Studies programme uses the principles of a learning agreement from the WBL curriculum to ensure programme coherence, and provides students with the opportunity to make a case for an award title that recognises their area of expertise and draws their learning together.
The validation of the programme expressly incorporated these features to enable a flexible approach to meet the educational and developmental needs of nurses. These are validated in 20, 30 40 and 60 credit formats at Degree level, which allow articulation with the rest of the University provision and can make up credit deficits that students may present with.
The use of 20 credits is popular as part of a bigger award of an Advanced Diploma 60 credits at graduate level , which builds upon a clinical practice course such as Diabetes or Rehabilitation, and by undertaking a WBL project as the final component of this, it enables consolidation and application of new learning into clinical practice. A WBL project differs from a dissertation as it demonstrates a range of practical capabilities in the work place and focuses on activities within the workplace leading to a product.
This product is a useful outcome of the learning activity, and often reflects a real need within clinical practice.
Typically nurses would have qualified prior to the introduction of the Diploma in Higher Education Project , and only had CATS points at Certificate level for their registered Nurse training. This chapter will review the variety of ways that aspects of the work based learning curriculum have been used within the school and some of the challenges and opportunities that WBL has presented to the school. Consequently they were experiencing difficulties in gaining promotion as they did not have recognisable qualifications, and although they had undertaken major projects within the service, such as closing or opening new services, there was no mechanism for formally recognising this Laycock Thus, it is more than professionals sitting in the same room learning together, which is usually termed multiprofessional education. The nursing programmes within the School have used components of the WBL curriculum to augment their curriculum content. The epistemology of practice is rooted in the creation of use; of practical knowing through the identification of frameworks and maps, rather than by codification.
Typical examples of work based projects that contribute to clinical practice include a review and update of an immunisation policy within a Primary Care Trust PCT , which also explored and catered for the policies of neighbouring PCTs so that movement of clients from one trust to another would not compromise the immunisation status of other clients. Another project reviewed the palliative care provision within the trust as a prelude to planning service development.
Another popular approach is to undertake an audit of current practice; e. These are not the traditional form of final dissertations, but give the learner experience in carrying out a real time project at work that uses research skills, but, more importantly, provides the learner with transferable skills, such as literature search and critique, data collection and analysis from a range of qualitative and quantitative sources, which are applicable to every day work.
An additional benefit for the learner from the WBL project, includes a contribution to his or her personal career development as well as having practical outcomes for the organisation and academic recognition for the work.
Work based learning projects tend to have an element of impact upon practice or a degree of change within them, which may be fully or partially explored in the project depending upon its size and scope. This can enable the learner to develop skills as a change agent within the organisation, together with associated skills such as enhanced communication and dissemination strategies.
Within the university procedures, a particular feature of the WBL project that is well used by learners, is that of automatic deferral of assignment submission without penalties. This enables the programme to be responsive to work schedules without adding additional unnecessary pressure to the learner during a time of work difficulties. Surprisingly few learners fail to return to complete their studies, but many appreciate the flexibility that deferment brings. During a recent revision of the academic framework of the University the WBLA Unit were able to contribute to the development of a range of programmes that included some of the principles of WBL within them.
These have included aspects such as a negotiated learning agreements and the use of portfolios for assessment within some of the more unusual health care fields such as Herbal or Chinese medicine. Some of the post graduate programmes have been designed to allow students to choose a work based route or a traditional dissertation route to complete the award to allow students to determine the most appropriate learning pathway for themselves. As the WBL route requires less attendance at university this often makes the decision for the student as there are increasing difficulties in getting funding or study time from practice areas, and therefore not having compulsory attendance times is a strong factor in its favour.
A disadvantage of this is that the student may not be adequately prepared for being a self-directed learner as they have been used to formal taught sessions and the change in mode of programme delivery may be a challenge that can initially require a lot of academic support.
The opportunity to use organisational training days as part of an accreditation claim has offered a model for continuous professional development CPD update days run by some health care programmes. The incorporation of such days into the academic calendar, with the option to turn these into WBL awards by accrediting them or including a WBL short project has been adopted by some subject areas within the school as a way of attracting prospective post graduate students. The WBLA unit has been able to offer valuable advice on accreditation for both individuals and organisations.
Accreditation of external programmes has opened new market opportunities for example in nutrition, osteopathy and counselling. A recent revalidation of the social work programme was able to incorporate accredited training by one of our partnership boroughs to supplement the post qualifying social work courses in mental health, thereby involving a wide range of stakeholders in the validation process and incorporating valuable multi-disciplinary working practices and knowledge into the new programme. This has opened up new possibilities for the use of WBL within a subject area of the school where previously professional body requirements and traditional approaches to HE have placed constraints around the use of WBL activities.
The opportunity to use WBL practices and procedures has demonstrated the flexibility and potential of the WBL curriculum. The emphasis on evidence based practice within HSSc has influenced the WBL programme, and an increased awareness of ethical factors in practice has led to deeper consideration and understanding of ethical and confidentiality issues for all WBL learners who are learning and investigating inside their work.
Experienced academics in HSSc are used to facilitating learning from practice due to personal experience of teaching in the practice areas and applying theory for and to practice, and as demonstrated from this discussion of the WBL curriculum, it does not take much ingenuity to progress along the WBL continuum towards increasingly negotiated learning, resulting in learners who are equipped with lifelong learning skills.
Service improvement in health care continues to be a dominant theme despite the considerable change and transformation that has taken place in the NHS. Work Based Learning in Health Care: Applications and Innovations School of Health and Social Sciences Work Based Learning and Accreditation Unit Staff.
Additionally, using the WBL curriculum within the school programmes and learning activities includes learning that is clearly work focused with expected outputs which demonstrate evidence of new learning and application. Both the facilitator and student are aware that the requirements of the programme are pragmatic and can be responsive to work place developments and changes.
Frequently trans-disciplinary interaction and learning at work are involved, especially within accredited programmes and the project element and activities. The design of the WBL framework, with negotiable content by an individual, provides a framework that can transfer to a wide variety of contexts and which is responsive to a number of customer demands.