Over the past couple years we have been supporting faculty in their use of digital story assignments to promote deep learning and reflection for students. Many of these efforts have been in undergraduate courses in the College of Arts and Sciences. On October 15th, Jane Leng, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences University of Surrey, will be hosting a seminar on the use of digital stories for nursing students.
The seminar presents the results of a Fellowship project which was stimulated by a concern that some student nurses underestimate the learning that takes place in practice and have limited awareness of their own tacit knowledge. Drawing on the work of Michael Eraut into how professionals learn through work, I investigated the power of stories to capture and articulate deep professional learning and the added value there may be in using emerging technologies to assist story telling. A group of final year undergraduate student nurses focussed on an experience from practice which had been important in their professional development and created a digital story to explain what they had learnt. The students' own evaluation of both the process and outcome of this work has been highly positive. Clinical educators and university teachers also recognised the stories as both inspiring and instructional. It is now intended that the stories be used as learning objects for both pre registration students and those learning to be mentors of students in practice. The lessons learnt from this project can inform the use of digital stories in other professional training contexts.
If you are interested in attending the seminar from a distance visit this link: http://learningtobeprofessional.pbworks.com/Jane-Leng
