Dr Ed ErringtonTeaching & Learning Development

James Cook UniversityTownsville/Cairns/Brisbane

QueenslandAUSTRALIA

Challenges facing educators using simulation to supplement students’ lived experience

SIMULATION IS...

Simulation... “is a technique used to replace or amplify real experience with guided experiences, often immersive in nature that evoke or replicate substantial aspects of the real world in a fully interactive manner”, (Gaba 2004:1).

SIMULATION’S “NOTHING NEW” TAG

Simulated learning designs include:-• Role-play• Scenario-based learning• Gaming• Psychodrama• Sociodrama• Playback theatre• Dramatization/re-enactment

All are based on ‘situated learning theory’ and a valuing of contextual knowledge

OUTLINE

1.Why educators use simulation

2.Significant challenges and how

these might be met

3.Optimising simulation -based

learning success

WHY HEALTH EDUCATORS USE SIMULATION

To provide an education aimed at:

• Improving patient safety and care

• Bridging theory with (clinical) practice

• Delivering a range of core skills

• Exposing students to a range of un/common

experiences

• Reproducing practice

SOME CHALLENGES INFLUENCING SIMULATION SUCCESS

LEARNER FOCUSSED CHALLENGES

• Psychological realism through a willing suspension of disbelief

• Clear understanding of the aims & relevance of the simulation

• Productive interaction with simulated patients• Opportunities for staged [critical] reflection

SITUATION-FOCUSSED CHALLENGES

• Constructing and sustaining true-to-life situations

• (Re)Creating and sustaining the scene• Drawing on people and situations

from a broad eclectic society

• Providing inter-positional opportunities

• Enabling knowledge transfer to real patients

TEACHER-FOCUSSED CHALLENGES

• Making practice deliberate

• Communicating ‘significant’ knowledge• Engaging students consciously in in

professional identity formation • Providing opportunities for team work

• Providing students with timely feedback

• Creating a risk-free environment

• Helping students deal with complexity

CURRICULUM-FOCUSSED CHALLENGES

• Helicopter view of the curriculum• Having a transparent curriculum

map• Integrating traditional knowledge,

simulated learning, and actual

patient care• Incorporating students’ lived experiences into

the curriculum• Broadening the curriculum to include team-

based simulations

OPTIMISING SIMULATION SUCCESS

Being driven by learning purposes not the technology/media Enhancing psychological realism Providing opportunities for repetition

Aligning immersion with (critical) reflection

Connecting with students’ lived experiences

OPTIMISING SIMULATION SUCCESScontinued...

Communicating clear roles and responsibilitiesHaving a helicopter view of the curriculum

Tolerating student failure (rehearsal/opening night?)

Moving from individual skills acquisition to team building

Training/mentoring simulation facilitators

WHAT DO TEACHERS NEED TO ASK?

(a) How might simulation help students acquire the technical and interpersonal skills needed for the health profession? [A question driving the current use of simulation-based learning]

OR

(b)How might simulation help students prepare for a lifetime of uncertainty and change within the increasing complexity of the (post)modern world? [A question with potential to transform simulation-based learning into a

process of genuine inquiry and provide an agenda of possibility]