Meet Strategic Technology Commons

Overhead projectors, notes on a chalkboard and one-way lectures have quickly become things of the past.

Learning at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry now involves virtual patients, online case-based education, learning analytics, and student-led exploration. The School's Strategic Technology Commons (STC) is helping faculty and instructors to find the most effective ways to navigate these new trends in education and technology in order to provide the best learning experience to their students.

"Now, teaching is about far more than standing in front of a lecture hall and dumping content, it's about understanding how students learn," said Dr. Peter Flanagan, director of Faculty elearning at STC. He says that technology has allowed knowledge to be available to anyone who wants to take the time to search it out. Because of that, coursework is no longer just about providing information to students, but rather about understanding how they get the information before class, how they can apply it in an educational setting and then what they do with that information after they leave the classroom. STC's team helps instructors and faculty to design and implement their courses in a way that reflects this new learning-style and that engages this new generation of tech-saavy students.

Jay Loftus is STC's Instructional Designer. He says that teaching technology is like golf, "you can have the best golf clubs that money can buy, but you have to have a good swing to make those golf clubs work for you." And his job is to help instructors to improve that hypothetical "swing." He works one-on-one with instructors to use technology in the classroom in the best possible way. He begins by determining what the goals of the course are, then works with the instructor to identify the technology that will best meet those goals, whether it be web-based learning, online discussion groups, computer-based 3-D anatomical models or any other number of a growing list of digital and technological tools.

Once the technology is identified and the course is designed, Instructional Trainer, Deb Teiszer can work with the faculty member to train them on the use of the technology. She focuses specifically on Western's Online learning platform, OWL; Videoconferencing in any one of the School's state-of-the-art videoconferencing classrooms; and Blackboard Collaborate, a program to broadcast Webinars as part of in-class learning. She also researches and pilots new technologies that may help to enhance the classroom experience. She recently piloted an audience-response system as part of a videoconferenced lecture.

"We now understand that people learn differently, and instructors are looking for the most effective ways to address that in a classroom," said Teiszer.

One of the most interesting trends in education is the move toward student-directed learning. The idea is that learners, especially in medicine, need to be able to identify the gaps in their knowledge, and then seek out the information to fill those gaps on their own. Understanding that trend, STC is developing a system called MyPortfolio to allow students to use online portfolios to gather and share information.

"MyPortfolio gets students used to the idea that they have to be the driver of their own learning, reflecting on both their failures and their successes," said Flanagan. Web developer Weikai Huang is busy at work customizing the software to best meet the needs of the School. The hope is that once complete, the software can be applicable not only across Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, but campus-wide as well.

The entire team at STC encourages any and all faculty members at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry to drop-in to their open-concept office to find out how their services might be helpful. You can find them in Clinical Skills Building, Room 2720 or email to book an appointment at stc@schulich.uwo.ca