Using Online Learning to Enhance Interdisciplinary Education

Journal of Allied Health, Spring 2004 by Carroll-Barefield, Amanda, Murdoch, Carolyn

EDUCATING FUTURE PRACTITIONERS to work in an interdisciplinary health care environment is not a new task. Nonetheless, more emphasis should be placed on interdisciplinary teaching models and less on traditional disciplinespecific models to increase the effectiveness of this instruction.1,2 This article describes the journey taken by an instructor to convert an interdisciplinary course from a traditional face-to-face course to an online course using WebCT.

Background

In 1998, the School of Allied Health Science at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) decided to offer multidisciplinary instructional module (MIM) courses to students. The MIMs offer the following advantages:

* A strengthened curriculum in all the allied health programs resulted from shifting the focus from the traditional disciplinespecific education model to an interdisciplinary focused model.

* Faculty resources were conserved when courses common to multiple disciplines were eliminated.

* Students from a variety of health care professions had the opportunity to interact and collaborate on group projects.

* An online MIMs approach is an effective method for delivering distance education.

Each module is offered over a 5-week period, 3 hours a day, 1 day a week, for the equivalent of one course credit.

In August 2000, the University System of Georgia (USG) answered the call for online learning by releasing e-core. With e-core, nontraditional students have the opportunity to complete their first 2 years of college online. The program, which includes synchronous and asynchronous instruction, targets students who cannot attend a USG campus.3

After the implementation and success of e-core, MCG saw an increase in the number of applicants and enrolled students who requested that either components of courses or entire programs be offered online. In response to the demand from the student and applicant population, and building on the success of USG's e-core initiative, MCG increased the number of courses offered online. Various MCG programs and courses now are offered in WebCT with several additional programs/courses planned for the future. One MCG course that transitioned from a traditional format to WebCT is U.S. Health Care Delivery Systems (AHS 3660). The evolution of this multidisciplinary instruction module course is described by the course instructor and author in the following paragraphs.

Course Description

AHS 3660 is a course designed to familiarize students with various health care settings (acute and nonacute care). During the 5-week module, students examine the presentday U.S. health care delivery system, its evolution, major components, need for interdisciplinary health care teams to maximize delivery, and future influencing factors. The module maximizes student participation in group and individual activities.

Transitioning from Traditional to Online Interdisciplinary Instruction

Initially AHS 3660 was taught in the traditional face-to-face lecture format. The class met for 3 hours, 1 day a week, in a large lecture hall. Faculty perception and student feedback from the first course offering indicated the need for improvement. The original course format punished the instructor and the student participants: The instructor spent hours each week preparing for lecture and creating a weekly quiz that the students had to endure. For a 1-hour credit course, students showed little interest in 3 hours of lecture per week, and their performance on quizzes was average. Students also were required to complete a group project. Student feedback from this assignment was mixed. Some students excelled in the activity, whereas others chose to sit on the sidelines.

It was evident to the course instructor that the instructional format and assignments needed to be evaluated and possibly redesigned. The significant amount of content that had to be covered in a 5-week period and the larger class size-by allied health standards (average of 40 students)posed a challenge to the effort to incorporate the group projects, quizzes, and lectures into a MIM format. Because the focus of this course was to create a multidisdplinary environment, similar to that in the workforce, it was important to retain the group projects.

These challenges led the course instructor to the decision to transition the course from a traditional lecture format to an online format. From her prior training in WebCT, the instructor realized the course transition should take place over a two-semester period. The importance of careful and methodical course transition cannot be overemphasized because the conversion of course materials can be time-consuming-it is not merely a process of "dumping" existing material into a web format. Successful transition requires planning and teamwork.4

The instructor was able to begin the conversion process with technical and design assistance provided by an instructional designer in the Office of Educational Design and Development (OEDD). OEDD supports MCG by:

[I]dentifying instructional needs and providing solutions aimed at successfully integrating teaching, learning, and computing on campus. The core functions of the office focus around developing curricular and educational tools that support faculty teaching. The staff work with faculty regarding course design, development and evaluation.5