During one of our first year Dental Hygiene courses, we like to have guest speakers especially from the Royal Canadian Legion or Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre to introduce their programs that the students will be involved with when providing dental services for vulnerable populations in our community.
My design challenge is to develop a digital resource that students would be able to refer to if they were unable to see the guest speaker, if they cannot remember information about the program, or a place where they can post questions to each other or the instructor about the program.
“Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself” (author Mohsin Hamid, in Leyshon 2012, as cited by Matthews, Williams, Yanchar & McDonald, 2017)
When thinking about the design, our students need to be considered. Their ages range from 18 (straight out of high school) to 50 or older (second or third career change). Some of them have post secondary education where they achieved a diploma or certificate from college or completed an undergraduate degree from university. Some of our students are new immigrants or are International students; therefore, English may be their second language. From the implementation of electronic textbooks in September 2019, it has been found through feedback from our faculty that the students are not comfortable with the digital environment and are not accessing the digital resources or modules. Another possibility that the students are not accessing the digital resources is that they have no time to spend on modules due to the heavy workload in the existing curriculum of theory and clinical requirements.
As noted by IDEO (2015), there are various methods to consider in engaging in a human centred design approach. For this design challenge, I have decided to use a combination of ‘Secondary Research’ and ‘Extremes and Mainstreams’ methods to ensure success of this project. I plan to interview the faculty member who will be involved with working with the students as well as one recent graduate and one current student. The challenge that I may encounter is contacting my participants due to their schedules and summer vacation. I am looking forward to working on this challenge to ensure success of our future students.
References:
IDEO. (2015). Design Kit – Methods. Retrieved from http://www.designkit.org/methods
Matthews, M. T., William, G. S., Yanchar, S. C., & McDonald, J. K. (2017). Empathy in Distance Learning Design Practice. Tech Trends, 61: 486-493. DOI 10.1007/s11528-017-0212-2.
Hello Joyce, I have been thinking about your challenge for a bit today as it appears that you have an important yet difficult task to face. The biggest hurdle I see is that your diversity in your students and the varying degrees in digital competency. I was thinking about our version of the Link at the beginning of this course. It was an introduction to the basics of the platforms we will use. It made me wonder if all your students had a basics intro to digital skills required before they are asked to access these presentations as they progress through their courses. This is an interesting challenge with what seems to have many layers. Good luck!
Hi Danielle,
Thank you so much for your feedback. The suggestion of having an introduction to the basics is a great idea especially since one of my participants mentioned that she was not comfortable with using the e-textbooks and other digital resources, since she did not receive training on the use of the technology. One aspect of having a brief training and introduction that will address the learners’ needs will definitely assist future users with the use of this digital resource.
Cheers!