The Douglas College Newsletter

IN

Douglas College

October 1999

@ New Westminster Campus, David Lam Campus & Thomas Haney Campus

 

Online project enhances Nursing discussions

General Nursing Instructor
Marilyn Lewthwaite doesn't do
anything halfway. When nursing
students asked for more online
courses, Lewthwaite chose the
one course that would be the
most difficult to translate to
online learning.

“T figured if I could get this
course online successfully, then
any course could be put online!”

says Lewthwaite.

The course in question is NURS
118: Nursing Practice I.
Combining labs, clinical sessions
and seminars, NURS 118 isa
physically active, student-driven
course.

“The students bring real
workplace questions from their
practicum sites to the seminars,”
Lewthwaite says. “Those
questions really determine the
direction of this portion of the
course.” The students, however,
didn’t bring a lot of questions to
class, and Lewthwaite and her
colleagues realized that many
topics were going untouched.
Course evaluations and
discussions with students didn’t
uncover the reason why, so they
decided to try a different route.

Working with Distributed
Learning Services (DLS) anda
computer information systems
work-study student, Lewthwaite,
along with nursing instructors
Sherry Soball, John Ritchie,
Marilyn Rainbow and Susan
Greathouse developed a pilot
project to provide online
instructional activities to be used
in addition to traditional
laboratory demonstration and
practice.

“The response has been
amazing,” says Lewthwaite. “We
taught this course for two years
using the traditional method and
nothing like this came from it.
The students have generated a
huge list of questions about all
the things they want to learn.”

Using Web CT, conferencing
software that allows students and
instructors to work together,
students log on to the NURS
118 Web site and access chat
groups, an electronic bulletin
board (BBS), self-paced activities
and self-assessment quizzes. And,
thanks to the hard work of DLS,
it’s a very visual site, full of
photographs of clinical setups
and other situations students will
encounter in hospitals, as well as
samples of drug labels and
handwritten charts. Audio and
video additions are planned for
the site at a later date.

“My advice to anyone who
wants to do this would be to
bring DLS in right from the
beginning,” says Lewthwaite.

DLS’s Designer/Trainer Susan
Greffard agrees. “We'll act as

consultants, guiding the process

without taking over,” she says.
“Work-study students can be
great with this kind of work, but
they often need someone to
check their progress and be
involved from the start.”

For more information on the
NURS 118 pilot project, contact
Marilyn Lewthwaite at local
5083. For more information on
how DLS can help you get your
online project underway, contact

Susan Greffard at local 5253.

Quote of the Month

 

General Nursing Instructor Marilyn Lewthwaite (right) and Psychiatric Nursing Instructor
Ray Fournier (left) examine the visual presenter used to enhance regular classroom
activities. This display was part of the Health Sciences Open House, held August 31-
September 2 at the New Westminster Campus. Lewthwaite also showcased her online
learning pilot project at the event.

 

Biology Instructors win
international award

Biology instructors Allen Billy, Myrta Hayes and Michael Looney received an Outstanding Paper award this
summer in Seattle Wash. at the 11 Annual Ed-Media 99 Conference on Educational Multimedia,
Hypermedia and Telecommunications. The conference showcases innovative and creative ways that
educators use computer technology and software. The trio presented a web-based teaching unit that
explores the joints in the human body and illustrates joint movements.

“We developed this unit so that physical education and nursing students enrolled in introductory human
anatomy and physiology courses could use it in the biology lab,” says Billy. “It includes a collection of
digital photographs of joint anatomy linked to QuickTime movies to illustrate major joint movements.”

The presentation was chosen from over 600 presentations offered by over 1,000 participants from all over
the world.

 

“No matter how much pressure you feel at work, if you could find ways to
relax for at least five minutes every hour, youd be more productive.”

Dr. Joyce Brothers