I am exploring how an online learning community might support the continuous learning and development of healthcare professionals’ digital skills and practices. The proposed research is guided by the community of inquiry (CoI) framework. The community of inquiry (CoI) is “an environment where participants collaboratively construct knowledge through sustained dialogue which makes possible personal meaning-making through opportunities to negotiate understanding” (Garrison, 2013, p. 4). The author postulates that learning is a social process wherein a community of learners creates meaning through exploration, discovery, and critical discourse (Garrison, 2013). The digitization of care to improve clinical decision-making and communication between interdisciplinary professionals (Coles, Demunnick, & Massesar, 2008) calls for digital upskilling to ensure they can utilize health information systems to promote patient care.
The community of inquiry is comprised of three essential elements that are interdependent: namely, social, cognitive, and teaching presence. Although they are equally critical, the teaching presence sets the tone and foundation for the rest of the elements. Lack of effective facilitation (teaching presence) can impede learners from engaging and interacting with the subject and their co-learners, supporting knowledge construction. According to Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes, and Garrison (2013), “facilitative actions, on the part of both the students and the instructor, create the climate, support discourse, and monitor learning such that presence can emerge, and inquiry occurs” (p. 46). Therefore, it is vital to develop strategies to support the three elements of the CoI framework that encourage continuous learning and development of digital practices in caring safely for patients. I also ponder the motivation of healthcare professionals to engage in the learning community. Clinicians are already contending to balance patient care and developing digital skills to improve clinical decision-making. They are “expected to learn an analytic, problem-solving approach to complete the assessment (using digital technology) and use the findings to develop a plan of care” (Coles et al., 2008). Hence, motivating healthcare professionals to engage in the online learning community is also an essential topic for my research. It is then crucial that the social, cognitive, and teaching presence include strategies that continuously allow participants to engage in a sustainable and meaningful co-creation of knowledge.
References
Garrison, D. R. (2013). Theoretical foundations and epistemological insights of the community of inquiry. In Akyol, Z., & Garrison, D. R. (Eds.), Educational Communities of Inquiry: Theoretical Framework, Research and Practice (pp. 1-11). http://doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2110-7.ch001
Vaughan, N.D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D.R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Retrieved from https://www.aupress.ca/books/120229-teaching-in-blended-learning-environments/
Coles, T., Demunnick, G., & Masesar, M. (2008). Transitioning from implementation to integration: An innovative team approach to support integration of technology into clinical practice. Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics, 3(2), 14-24. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.584.8262&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Excellent choice Sharon and great job both describing the TF and explaining why it’s a right choice. I really liked your ideas around motivation and you may want to look at a section within the lit review on that as a sub topic — possibly more generally around motivation and education and/or maybe motivation and online learning if you aren’t able to find too much on motivation of health care professionals and learning. It may be one of the gaps that you are able to show.
Hi Sharon,
Thanks for the great walk through of your thoughts here.
I really like the idea of CoI for a TF with what you have described. I wonder if when considering motivation (or sub topic of motivation) if you will look at the required professional development within the healthcare profession. Is this something that could be tied in to your motivation thought?
With having a required amount of professional development time each year, it is easy to meet the minimum. I’m just wondering, if there is a motivation beyond the minimum? For those that look for true betterment within their careers or aspects in their careers.
As an accountant, I have minimum requirement of PD. Each year, I far surpass that minimum, but I LOVE learning and education. The idea of bettering the experience for those that I come into contact with, is what drives me and my desire to constantly improve.
Within your topic are you doing healthcare as a whole? Or did you narrow down your topic?
What a great concept here! I’m excited to see where this goes!
Thank you, Deb, for your comments and feedback. I was going through literature on motivation and online learning in healthcare settings and did not find topics on sustaining a less formal and less structured continuing education. There is currently a gap in the topic of engaging healthcare professionals to sustain online learning outside the structured continuing professional development. I am getting more curious about how might a clinician engage in an online learning community that is informal to develop her digital skills? I understand that the lit review is not to look for a solution(s) but to understand the state of the land, and it is becoming clearer that there could be a gap in sustaining informal learning in the healthcare settings.
Thanks, Leigha, for your feedback! You made valid points on looking into continuing professional development (CPD) as an incentive to engaging in digital upskilling. Like your profession, healthcare professionals are required to accumulate CPD points as part of their designation. I am exploring the less structured /informal workplace learning in which the learners are motivated to sustain an online learning community to develop their digital skills and practices. So far, the lit reviews I’ve explored are focused on a structured online learning program that ends after a certain period of time. I have not yet stumbled on articles that discuss informal learning and how to integrate it into clinical practices that are not episodic or one-time events. So, it seems that I could be looking into a gap in the literature.