Massive Open Online Course for HPE&R

Kathmandu, Nepal

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has changed the way learning happens in the globe. Distance learning is becoming a norm now as internet has empowered us to do courses from the institutions and instructors of our choice without leaving the comfort and safety of our room, family and country. It might also contribute reducing the much talked/reported "brain drain" in the long term for education as these courses are "free" so far. In my opinion, two MOOC players, EdX and Coursera, are currently most active in this scenario. EdX is open-source whereas Coursera is closed-source.

 

Both of them have some excellent courses related to Health Professions Education & Research (HPE&R) but the one recently announced course in the Coursera entitled "Instructional Methods in Health Professions Education" is getting lots of attraction here in Nepal and South Asia. Many of the colleagues from the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS) and FAIMER fellows and faculty from PSG FAIMER Regional Institute (PSG-FRI) have already registered for this course within a month of getting knowledge about it through the "group mail" and "listserve" of PAHS and PSG-FRI respectively.

 

The introduction of this course says that "This course provides those involved in educating members of the health professions anasynchronous, interdisciplinary, and interactive way to obtain, expand, and improve their teaching skills."

With this course, the instructor claims that the learners will:

1. Understand educational theory as it relates to health professions education
2. Match instructional methods with desired educational outcomes
3. Learn a variety of applied teaching techniques
4. Share successful teaching strategies

It covers broad areas of HPE and I especially like the starting of the course with the adult learning theory. There is no doubt that it will provide the theoretical and practical bases for all the faculty involved in the HPE.

 

More are here: https://www.coursera.org/course/instructmethodshpe

 

The course is starting from August 5, 2013 so kindly register if you want to improve your teaching, assessment and research in HPE if it turns out to be the effective one, which remains to the judged by you later.

 

I would like to thank to the first voter/s who have voted their choice in the poll entitled "What do you want me to write (next)?" I will wait some more time and then prioritize my writing based on the "e-vox populi".

 

I am planning to write next post on "Andragogy: Adult Learning Principles".