Learning in the Digital Age (SoLT) Seminar

This seminar will be video conferenced to:

Bendigo: BUS129-BoardRoom

Albury-Wodonga: Library AW Conference Room

An online learning package to support students with an independent project

Presented by Dr. Andrew Hahne, Deenika Benjamin and Janet McConville

Is it possible to improve the learning experience for students in a subject that has already won awards for excellence (2014 La Trobe University citation for outstanding contribution to student learning)?

The Advanced Physiotherapy Practice team of Dr. Andrew Hahne, Deenika Benjamin and Janet McConville used a Digital Learning Innovation Grant in an attempt to make a good subject even better.

The subject provides an opportunity for students to complete an independent project that will contribute to improving physiotherapy practice. The realisation that some students were producing innovative and potentially marketable projects indicated that students required online learning packages to allow them to reach their full potential.

Online learning packages were developed including modules relating to research ethics, innovation & entrepreneurship and intellectual property. An online workbook allows students to develop their own project through conception, feedback, implementation and evaluation. An engaging online learning environment is created via professionally produced video’s and moderated online discussion activities.

The digital innovations in this subject will be implemented for the first time in Semester 2, 2016. Teaching staff are eager to see if the changes do indeed enrich the learning experience for students in a subject that already rates very highly.

About the speakers

Dr. Andrew Hahne is a lecturer in Physiotherapy at La Trobe University. He enjoys the combination of teaching, research, and clinical practice, and has noticed the increasing use of digital innovations in all of these three fields. Andrew led a team that received a La Trobe University citation for outstanding for outstanding contribution to student learning in 2014 for the implementation of a simulated professional conference into the subject Advanced Physiotherapy Practice.

Deenika Benjamin is a lecturer in Physiotherapy and PhD candidate at La Trobe University. She has developed a range of online resources to support teaching and learning for the 2016 PTY5APP and PTY2PDA subjects. This has included designing interactive lessons with embedded guidance videos, electronic books, website and series of online videos detailing ethics, patents, conference and workshop presentations as well as physiotherapy management skills to support flipped classroom teaching.

Janet McConville is a lecturer in Physiotherapy at LaTrobe University. She has developed a range of online resources to support teaching and learning , including a series of online videos demonstrating assessment and treatment skills to support flipped classroom teaching and multiple campus presentation of curriculum, an interactive online clinical reasoning resource and 4 tutorials to be run in the clinical school presented on Pebblepad.