University Teachers’ Digital Empowerment for Blended Teaching: An Online Training Design

Because of the impact of the pandemic in the different sectors of society, blended training solutions have acquired, in the field of education, an important relevance, speeding up a change that would normally require years to be developed.Teachers from all levels of education had to adapt and develop their practices using digital technologies without enough knowledge to do it properly. Considering this context, this paper will present the design of an online training that seeks to empower university teachers to take advantage of the potential of digital technologies to design and implement educational practices in blended settings while they acquire Digital Competences. This training will be applied with a challenge-based learning methodology and from a collaborative perspective. In addition, participants will develop the role of students and teachers at the same time in order to design blended educational practices that respond to the needs of their own students.The proposed training, that will be designed by teachers from the Open University of Catalonia with wide experience on training in Digital Competences and online teaching, will be implemented in 6 countries around Europe (Italy, Spain, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus and Finland), will be developed in the framework of the European project Empower Competences for Onlife Learning in HE (ECOLHE).

Effects of a simulation-based blended training model on nurses’ treatment decision-related knowledge about oral cancer in Taiwan: a pilot survey

The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of VR simulations combined with bedside assignments on nurses' self-efficacy in providing pre-treatment educational services. Between March 2019 and November 2020, we conducted a study of VR educational materials that were developed to cover information about the treatment of oral cancers. The effects of the VR simulation, the thinking-path tracking map method, and bedside assignments on the nurses treatment decision-related knowledge were evaluated in a ward for oral cancer patients at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. The blended training model significantly increased nurses' familiarity (P<0.01) and confidence (P<0.03) regarding their knowledge of treatments and treatment decision-related knowledge. This model also significantly increased their confidence in their skills in bedside pre-treatment education for admitted oral cancer patients (P<0.002). Oral cancer-specific VR materials enhanced the effectiveness of skills training among nurses in the oral cancer ward.

Capacity Building in Mental Health for Bihar: Overview of the 1-Year Blended Training Program for Nonspecialist Medical Officers

Objective The aim of this study is to give an experiential overview of a 1-year blended training program for nonspecialist medical officers (primary care doctors; PCDs) of Bihar State of India. The training program was aimed to enable PCDs identify, diagnose, and treat commonly presenting psychiatric disorders in primary care Methods PCDs had a brief onsite orientation program to psychiatric practice at National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS), followed by 10 months of online blended training. The online program followed the NIMHANS Virtual Knowledge- Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) model, that is, a hub and spokes model of training Results Twenty-two PCDs participated in this program. Eleven of them got accredited at the end. The onsite orientation consisted of exposure to various psychiatry facilities at NIMHANS, in addition to learning psychiatric history taking and mental status examination. The ECHO model of online learning consisted of fortnightly sessions, lasting 2 hours each. There were 20 such sessions. Each session consisted of a didactic lecture by the psychiatrist followed by a case discussion. The cases were presented by PCDs, moderated by the hub specialists (NIMHANS). At the end of the training, participants rated an average of 4.5/5 on the mode, content and relevance of training and increase in knowledge due to the training. Around 23,000 patients were cared for during the said 1 year by the trained PCDs. Conclusion Training PCDs in a manner that enables retaining the learnt skills is feasible. However, rigorous evaluation protocols are needed in order to test this in a systematic fashion.

Integrating online assessment into blended training form: a case study at Lac Hong University

This paper presents a method to integrate online assessment into blended training form. Based on the Bloom Taxonomy, this study supports digital tools and methodology for assessment online based on the blended training form. Furthermore, ePortfolio has applied to assess the soft skill and knowledge during time students study the course. From the results, this paper found the benefit of student and lecturer in teaching and learning activities based on the blended learning form including assessments online such as: (1) the benefit and challenges of blended training method, (2) the benefits and challenges of online assessment (3) developing the assessment model for blended method, and (3) proposing suitable digital tools for assessment online.

Integrating online assessment into blended training form: a case study at Lac Hong University

This paper presents a method to integrate online assessment into blended training form. Based on the Bloom Taxonomy, this study supports digital tools and methodology for assessment online based on the blended training form. Furthermore, ePortfolio has applied to assess the soft skill and knowledge during time students study the course. From the results, this paper found the benefit of student and lecturer in teaching and learning activities based on the blended learning form including assessments online such as: (1) the benefit and challenges of blended training method, (2) the benefits and challenges of online assessment (3) developing the assessment model for blended method, and (3) proposing suitable digital tools for assessment online.

Multiple breath washout in bronchiectasis clinical trials: is it feasible?

BackgroundEvaluation of multiple breath washout (MBW) set-up including staff training, certification and central “over-reading” for data quality control is essential to determine the feasibility of MBW in future bronchiectasis studies.AimsTo assess the outcomes of a MBW training, certification and central over-reading programme.MethodsMBW training and certification was conducted in European sites collecting lung clearance index (LCI) data in the BronchUK Clinimetrics and/or i-BEST-1 studies. The blended training programme included the use of an eLearning tool and a 1-day face-to-face session. Sites submitted MBW data to trained central over-readers who determined validity and quality.ResultsThirteen training days were delivered to 56 participants from 22 sites. Of 22 sites, 18 (82%) were MBW naïve. Participant knowledge and confidence increased significantly (p<0.001). By the end of the study recruitment, 15 of 22 sites (68%) had completed certification with a mean (range) time since training of 6.2 (3–14) months. In the BronchUK Clinimetrics study, 468 of 589 (79%) tests met the quality criteria following central over-reading, compared with 137 of 236 (58%) tests in the i-BEST-1 study.ConclusionsLCI is feasible in a bronchiectasis multicentre clinical trial setting; however, consideration of site experience in terms of training as well as assessment of skill drift and the need for re-training may be important to reduce time to certification and optimise data quality. Longer times to certification, a higher percentage of naïve sites and patients with worse lung function may have contributed to the lower success rate in the i-BEST-1 study.