How we have helped

Examples of the ways we have helped FMHS staff to develop curriculums, courses, and course and multimedia resources to enhance teaching and learning.

Underpinning each example is a learning design that links learning objectives, tasks and assessment.

For some of these resources, your computer will need Flash Player.

Examples include:

  • Computer Assisted Learning for the Mind (CALM)
  • FMHS Everything Teaching
  • Nursing 705: Principles of Diagnostic Reasoning
  • Pharmacotherapy in Psychiatry goes fully online
  • Transforming Gerontology courses

Computer Assisted Learning for the Mind (CALM)

A website to develop and support mental well-being.

FMHS Everything Teaching

Teaching resources to support FMHS educators.

Nursing 705: Principles of Diagnostic Reasoning

We created an animation of the major anatomical landmarks of the heart. The link to the resource will be shared here once it is made available.

Pharmacotherapy in Psychiatry goes fully online

In order to meet the needs of busy pharmacists working in diverse locations and practice contexts around New Zealand the course Pharmacotherapy in Psychiatry required redesigning to become fully online.

Monica Zolezzi, Senior Lecturer, School of Pharmacy wanted to make changes that would provide:

  • Flexible access to course materials (time and space)
  • Engaging, authentic learning in mental health management and prescribing
  • A professional development and communication support structure for isolated pharmacists working in a specialized field

Monica worked with Adam Blake (LTU) using learning design principles to redesign the course in the following ways:

  • Monica and a range of expert contributors used Articulate Presenter to share their expertise with students via narrative voice-overs for audio-visual presentations.
  • Videotaped patient interviews provided a real-world basis for course discussions in the University's CECIL learning management system.
  • Case ‘logbooks' (personal journals in CECIL) were set up for participants to record, reflect and gain feedback on their own practice experiences.
  • Authentic case scenarios, together with participant practice experiences, acted as a platform for development of care plans addressing the most prevalent mental health conditions that participants could employ directly in their professional practice.

Monica learned how to use CourseBuilder to develop the course, which meant she had the control to create and update course content without having to depend on technical staff.

Adam and Monica carried out usability trials to test and refine a prototype of the course website and at the end of the development they undertook an evaluation to determine how the new course design supported health professional participants in developing their mental health management and prescribing skills. Because of the positive reception of the course changes by staff and students, it has subsequently provided a template for other postgraduate pharmacy courses to be redeveloped for online learning.

Adam has brought great enthusiasm to the role. He has literally opened our eyes to the potential of learning technologies and has worked collaboratively with our staff to help them develop and refine new teaching and learning practices.

Professor John Shaw Head of School of Pharmacy

Transforming Gerontology courses

The LTU has been working with the Gerontology team at the School of Nursing to work through a slow but steady pedagogical transformation. The focus of work has been around planning and ensuring that changes implemented are pedagogically sound and suited to the specific learning context.

Originally, the gerontology papers were supported with a CD learning resource that was sent out to students each year. Anne Williamson (School of Nursing) worked with Pauline Cooper (LTU) to update the CD resources, using the University's own web development tool CourseBuilder. A total of seven courses needed updating and revamping within two years - and Ann was only employed on a 0.2 appointment. So, it was decided to stage the project in two phases.

The first phase involved simply transferring the current resources into CourseBuilder; Anne used this time to become familiar with the tool and get her head around its functionality and capabilities. The second phase focused almost exclusively on design and pedagogical issues; aligning curriculum elements and transforming the tools from a supplementary resource to a vital hub where students could go to converse with their peers, give and receive feedback, and ultimately stimulate a community of practice.

The peer review tool, Aropa, was employed to encourage students to actively reflect on their coursework (and the coursework of their peers) and the Cecil discussion board function is now used to ensure that students can apply theory to situated practice through the use of scenario-based learning. Additionally, a much clearer course structure, in the second phase of the project, has allowed the team to identify the measurability (or lack thereof) of learning outcomes, which we remedied by ensuring each learning outcome was covered in assessment.