Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) for Health Professions Education (HPE)

As technology increasingly intersects with education, there is a need to provide more training opportunities that support and enhance Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) among health professionals.

The Executive Certificate (EC) will be an added incentive to health professions educators as the formal qualification will serve as a further statement of their commitment to educational excellence. The sense of achievement in acquiring an Executive Certificate will also encourage them to pursue lifelong learning.

Digital and online technology can fundamentally redefine the nature of the classroom. Blended, online, extended reality (XR) and simulated learning environments can stimulate, enhance, and amplify interactive and participative learning. Courses that blend pedagogically-sound learning technologies can be highly effective if delivered appropriately and to a high standard, with participating students deriving high levels of satisfaction. Availability of high-quality materials delivered through a range of media (online, mobile, XR) helps create an inclusive educational experience. At the same time, more interactive teaching methods allow students to actively participate in shaping their learning, involving them in their own learning journey, and empowering them to develop practical and transferable skills.

TEL has surged in prominence with the pandemic. However, many health professions educators struggle with the available educational technologies, not just with the technical details, but also understanding when and how best to use them, as well as the underpinning educational principles that support their use. Thus, there is a need and desire for a more formal course that will provide health professions educators with the necessary educational frameworks, understanding and practical skills to critically evaluate and incorporate existing educational technologies in their own teaching practice to promote and encourage learning.

Programme Outline

The programme consists of two core courses and five electives*:
*You will only need to choose two out of the five electives to complete this EC.

• GMS5301 – Principles of Learning and Teaching in the Professions (Core)
• GMS5302 – Principles and Applications of Technology Enhanced Learning (Core)
• GMS5311 – Fundamentals of Simulation-based Education in Health Professions Education (Elective)
• GMS5312 – Immersive Learning (Elective)
• GMS5313 – Serious Games: Application in Healthcare (Elective)
• GMS5314 – Learning Analytics and Student Performance (Elective)
• GMS5315 – Implementing Online Assessments (Elective)

GMS5301 Principles of Learning and Teaching in the Professions (Core)

This course will give you a framework to develop the skills necessary for course design, teaching, learning, assessments, and facilitating learning within your professional context. You will have opportunities to build your confidence in teaching practice through reflection and participation in a community of practice. With your peers, you will be exploring learning theories, course design and good instructional practices. Finally, this course will provide you with opportunities to put theory into practice in the form of a microteaching activity or portfolio where you will receive feedback from your peers and experts.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Develop a critical and reflective mindset on learning and teaching in professional contexts
• Design courses for adult learners with explicit outcomes aligned to learning activities and assessments
• Use questioning and facilitation strategies to promote effective learning among students
• Evaluate your teaching to determine the impact of your teaching strategies on student outcomes
• Appreciate the value of building a community of practice of educators within your professional environment
  

GMS5302 Principles and Applications of Technology Enhanced Learning (Core)

This course aims to introduce participants to the principles of teaching and learning when using technology. You will have the opportunity to explore, evaluate and incorporate existing technologies in your own teaching practice to promote and encourage learning. This module will provide the theoretical foundation for those who wish to further explore advance topics in using technology to enhance learning.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Explain how technology can be used within your own practice to encourage and promote learning
• Identify issues and trends in technology for learning
• Analyse existing digital technologies to support current and future learning needs
• Design a technology enhanced learning activity to achieve the desired learning outcomes

GMS5311 Fundamentals of Simulation-based Education in Health Professions Education (Elective)

This course will expose participants to the fundamentals of simulation-based education (SBE) in healthcare. The course will explore the educational theories applied to SBE, scenario design, creating safe learning environments, and facilitating immersive simulation, touching on feedback and debriefing. You will have the opportunity to design, develop and implement a simulation-based educational activity specific to your healthcare setting.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Identify the educational theories that inform SBE
• Outline a range of simulation modalities that can be applied to healthcare simulation
• Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of implementing SBE
• Describe the phases of SBE and how the components of each phase impact learning
• Describe appropriate uses of technology for SBE
• Demonstrate how to plan and design a simulation-based learning activity

GMS5312 Immersive Learning (Elective)

This course will provide an introduction to immersive learning, an approach that makes use of Extended Reality (XR) technologies to create a highly interactive virtual or simulated environment where learners can be fully immersed in the learning process. During the course, you will learn about the principles of immersive learning and key XR enabling technologies. You will also learn to recognise the opportunities and challenges presented by immersive learning, as well as evaluate their use in healthcare education.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Explain the principles of immersive learning
• Identify key enabling XR technologies
• Describe how XR technologies may be used to support immersive learning
• Evaluate immersive learning for healthcare education
• Plan an immersive learning use case

This course aims to introduce you to the world of using games for learning. Games are usually associated with entertainment, but “serious games” are designed with a specific intent and purpose. You will learn about the principles of designing games and be able to evaluate the use of serious games for learning and patient care.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Explain the principles of game design
• Describe how games can be used for learning
• Evaluate games for healthcare management
• Plan a serious game for learning

In learning analytics, educators use technology to improve learning by capturing course delivery and student learning data to report on the student’s performance. Through learning analytics, we can obtain objective traces of data to understand student learning and do a faster iteration to close the loop of teaching, learning and feedback to improve students’ learning experience. During this course, you will learn to design and identify student learning data collection, handle, clean and curate data, visualise and analyse student performance data, formulate the possibilities of providing real-time feedback and be equipped with skills for decision making.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Formulate student performance questions
• Design and integrate learning analytics approaches with data collection, analysis and visualisations into your curriculum to assess student performance
• Adapt technologies and tools in learning analytics into your daily content delivery
• Perform appropriate data handling, cleaning and curation for detailed analysis

This course is designed to introduce healthcare professionals to the fundamental principles in medical education assessment practice. Participants will explore the foundations of evidence-based assessment theories and practice that are most suitable for use in the healthcare sector. A special focus of this course will be the implementation of authentic and valid online assessments. Formative and summative online assessments will be explored, in addition to the appropriate delivery of actionable feedback.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Explain the underlying principles of best assessment practice, including the theories of validity, formative versus summative nature of assessments, test construction and modes of assessment
• Explain the challenges and opportunities associated with online assessments
• Formulate a scheme of online assessments
• Design and deliver a single robust online assessment tool

Certification

The award of the NUS Executive Certificate requires the successful completion of four one unit courses in the programme with at least a “C” grade in each of the courses. Participants may repeat the courses (with fees) to obtain a “C” grade or higher, as long as they have not exceeded the maximum candidature period. Participants who do not obtain at least a “C” grade in any of the courses within the maximum candidature will be issued a Certificate of Participation for the course.

Duration

There is no minimum candidature period for the Executive Certificate programme. The maximum period is 24 months.

Class Size

Attendance

Programme Schedule

Course Fees

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Note:

1. SSG will only fund a course once for each eligible trainee and in the event, you have to retake a course, you will not be eligible for SSG funding again.
2. On registration, eligible applicants pay either 10% or 30% of fees depending on their age.
3. Student Service Fee (SSF): Students are required to pay an additional SGD25.46 per semester. In the event that students do not take any courses that semester, they would not have to pay this fee.
4. * For students who are supported by SSG funding, please note that if you have taken an SSG-funded course, you would be liable to pay back the SSG training grant plus the prevailing Goods and Services Tax (GST) to NUS if you have received the grant for the course and fall into any of the following categories:
• Failure to fulfil a minimum attendance of 75% for the course
• Premature withdrawal from the course
• Failure to pass all prescribed coursework, examinations and/or assessments for the course
5. Please note that the Tuition Fee and Student Services Fee (SSF) are non-refundable and non-transferable.
6. All requests for withdrawal must be received 6 weeks before the start of the workshop for the course. Late withdrawals will be subjected to payment of the FULL course fees. Any access to learning materials (online preparatory materials and workshop materials) will be considered as participation and no refunds will be allowed.

Registration Details