Flexible Delivery means healthy enrolments
Otago Polytechnic’s Certificate in Health has existed one form or another for at least seven years. When it last became necessary to re-develop the programme content, the health team also seized the opportunity to address delivery methods and teaching style.
The outcome? A programme successfully making efficient use of lecturer time while meeting the needs of a wide range of students and feeding neatly into the Polytechnic’s own health degrees.
“The new programme developments were initiated by the heads of the health schools,” says Judy Magee, Programme Manager and lecturer in bioscience for the Certificate. “Sally Pairman had a vision of what she wanted and others told her what they needed in terms of ability in certain areas, such as working with others.
“Flexible delivery was desirable because it gave students more choice, and students who had previously been denied access because they lived outside of Dunedin could now be included.”
The programme, in which enrolments have doubled since 2007, is currently offered in Dunedin and by distance with block courses – an option proving particularly popular with students looking to study midwifery and Mÿori students. However, even locally-based students are no longer taking part in traditional lectures, explains Judy.
Dunedin students now come to campus three mornings per week for tutorials and complete their learning online. Of the 35 hours per week required in the programme nine are face to face. Distance students spend an equal amount of time per week in tutorials using Elluminate.
“Online learning has replaced something that really wasn’t that great to begin with - traditional lectures. In my opinion, lectures are not a smart use of a lecturer’s time.
After all, why would you spend time teaching what is beautifully represented in a text book already? We still offer the same number of tutorials, but these are now higher quality sessions in which students can address the issues and questions they really have.”
Students unused to self-directed study, particularly school leavers, are not left without a clear structure for learning. Judy and her team have produced a guide book (modelled on an example from Veterinary Nursing) clearly outlining expectations and making recommendations for successful study.
The timetable is set up clearly for them listing Learning Units and Lab topics and clearly indicating the progress each student should make on a weekly basis.
On a personal level Judy has also found the new programme delivery extremely beneficial in terms of her own time-management.
While she acknowledges that learning to use online teaching tools and developing new resources for online learning has been ‘hard work’, that slog is now beginning to pay off.
“I’ve been able to make better use of my time, particularly within the Polytechnic’s new literacy cluster. I’ve heard other lecturers say ‘we don’t have time for this extra work’, but I actually find that I do.”
She has also drawn from personal development programme Turning Point to find solutions for professional challenges.
Having previously struggled with timetabling and streaming of electives within the second half of the Certificate, Judy has now developed a replacement course for commencement in July 2009 which will cover all four health streams (midwifery, occupational therapy, nursing and health in the community).
The new course will simultaneously relieve her timetabling issues (allowing her to properly fill all streams), reduce the workload for lecturers within all health schools, and ‘market’ the less popular or least understood health areas to potential students.
“This solution came directly out of the Turning Point programme and it’s work-busting. Now I’m looking at a workload that doesn’t have issues with timetabling and streaming in it at all. Our programme will be delivered differently because I went to Turning Point.”