MOOCs and Clinicals

By Matt Reed. This week I had one of those “duh” moments when I realized that I had been missing something basic.
The dean of the Health division -- which includes nursing -- and I took a field trip to a local health care provider to talk about working together to give nursing students some exposure to what goes on there. These wouldn’t be full-fledged clinical placements -- we already have those -- but a sort of structured introduction to a part of the health care system that isn’t always top-of-mind for nursing students.  The meeting went well, and I think there’s potential for something good to happen. In the course of the meeting, though, the dean and the director of the facility got to talking about the difference between the ways that they were taught when they went to school, and the way the health field actually works.  When they went through, they had “lectures” which taught “theory,” and “clinicals” that taught “practices.”  Students who were relatively good at one weren’t always good at the other, and the connections between the two weren’t always obvious. Read more...