Increasing social and collaborative student engagement
through interactive technology integration into online StudyDesks
in an undergraduate and postgraduate course

Course and cohort

NUR3020: Professional Transitions |  368 undergraduate students
ANP8003: Management in Health Care Practice | 22 postgraduate students

Context

Third year Bachelor of Nursing students enrolled in the online cohort of NUR3020 experience difficulties with course engagement. This involves difficulties in balancing the competing demands of clinical placement with study, home, work and life commitments and resulting in students feeling overwhelmed. Issues surrounding behavioural engagement exist with competing demands between theory and practice components of study. Course completion is focused on the completion of assessments rather than engaging in conversations and content.

The development of social identity and important aspects of self awareness, self care and adaptability are required as students transition and further as students progress in their career as a Registered Nurse. Without engagement in the course theoretical content, the fear of students in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses not grasping important aspects of self-awareness, self-care and adaptability are lost. The social and collaborative engagement sought has a direct transference into practice settings upon graduation and into future career planning, therefore the Transition to Practice course NUR3020, is important in student preparation for clinical practice and in the graduate year as the transition period extends students’ understanding and self as they develop as registered nurses.

The social and collaborative engagement of students engaged in ANP8003 Management in Healthcare sought to integrate key management principles with students in a learning journey approach that requires engagement, reflection and critical thought activities with peers. This is important as managers gain the soft skills of communication, negotiation and understanding through these activities.

Description of course design

NUR3020 design

NUR3020 was redesigned to enable students to complete activities and course content whilst juggling clinical placement in their last semester of study. The course team scaffolded VoiceThreads and H5P activities from the beginning of the course with the getting started introductions. Activities were scaffolded to integrate theory in small sections divided by interactive H5P activities.

VoiceThread was integrated to encourage students to use more modes of reflective practice than purely a written forum. These included reflection in ethical and self awareness activities relating to career planning. The VoiceThreads were purposely designed to engage students where written tasks would not normally be used in practice. This encouraged principles of communication in practice through the use of knowing and applying theory. Weeks 1, 2, 7 and 11 were used to integrate VoiceThread.

ANP8003 design

ANP8003 VoiceThread was designed to engage students from a professional networking perspective. The use of VoiceThread provided students with the capacity to network in asynchronous tutorials at a time suitable to their needs as postgraduate student learners.

Intervention 1: VoiceThread for Social, Cognitive, Behavioural and Collaborative Engagement

VoiceThread was integrated into the undergraduate course NUR3020 because the Course Examiner believed that VoiceThread would offer the opportunity for the teaching team to verbally engage with students more effectively by employing a flipped classroom model. While aspects of this course are self-directed, it was anticipated that the use of VoiceThread would be appealing to students because of the increased capacity for lecturing staff to introduce content verbally, for staff and students to engage in verbal reflective discussions, and ultimately, to build greater collaborative engagement with peers, teaching staff and guest speakers throughout the semester. It was believed that the introduction of VoiceThread in NUR3020’s course design would offer a more professional, inclusive and collegial approach to support more personalised student learning experiences with enhanced positive collaborative engagement.

VoiceThread was integrated into the postgraduate management in health care practice course ANP8003. This Masters level course provides healthcare professionals with the opportunity to reflect on the leadership and management aspects of their role and apply theoretical knowledge to the realities of leadership and management practice in health care. The ability to reflect on practice and in practice made the choice of offering Voice Thread as a tool to reflect with peers an option to provide more than writing for reflection. Voice Thread was integrated from Week 1 into the course to enable students to engage in an introduction via their own choice of VoiceThread medium. VoiceThread was then strategically placed at various intervals throughout the course to engage students in collegial and participatory reflective practice exercises. This provided an inclusive and participatory approach to adult learning.

Intervention 2: H5P for Cognitive, Behavioural and Emotional Engagement

A second strategy using technology was implemented at the same time. This strategy engaged the use of H5P activities in specifically targeted StudyDesk Moodle books. This strategy sought to provide a link between VoiceThread and theory. The activities were inclusive of traditional written reflective exercises, short quizzes, work searches and fill the blank type exercises. It was anticipated that the use of H5P activities would engage students in other pure theoretical content that they may otherwise choose to skip over. This was also strategically aligned with the VoiceThread design and was focused on providing a more professional, inclusive and collegial approach to learning.