This week I will briefly review two open educational
resources that can enhance adult distance learning. The first one is Multimedia
Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT), and the second
is Open Educational Resources (OER).
MERLOT is a free, open online community of resources
designed primarily for faculty, staff and students of higher education. Registered
members share resources by posting activities to the site, allowing other
members to review content. This offers peer-reviewed post-secondary
resources for all to use and share. MERLOT's vision is to "improve the
effectiveness of teaching and learning by increasing the quantity and quality
of peer reviewed online learning materials that can be easily incorporated into
... courses" (MERLOT, 2013).
Membership is free. Educators join online communities to
network with others in their specific areas of interest or a specific field.
In searching MERLOT for learning activities related to
nursing education and found several tutorials posted by Dr. Margaret Hansen,
from the University of San Francisco School of Nursing. I have used Dr. Hansen's
tutorial on arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis to assist students in
learning and applying ABGs. The tutorial provides a general overview of
acid-base balance, and mini-case studies to apply the theoretical information.
Interested faculty can see when the original tutorial was posted and if it has
been updated. Dr. Hansen last updated the tutorial on January 2013.
Other resources that might be incorporated into nursing
education relate to math and medication calculations. Jeanne Sewell, Assistant
Professor from Georgia
College & State University submitted a tutorial titled "Dosage Calculations,"
that review general math concepts and help nursing students apply those
concepts to calculating medication dosages.
Reference:
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online
Teaching (2013). About us. Retrieved from http://taste.merlot.org/
Open Educational Resource Commons is another educational
website that supports the sharing of learning resources among educators. Created in 2007, OER offers learning material
for anyone and everyone to use, from simple syllabi to full open courses. As I
searched this site, I was able to find 49
nursing resources such as case studies and activities for calculating medication
dosages. You may notice I searched for math and dosage calculations resources
on both the MERLOT and OER websites. Nursing students traditionally struggle
with math concepts, especially applying fractions, decimals and percentages to
medication calculations. Students have diverse learning styles; therefore,
locating a variety of free, online resources for students is important.
Another resource category on OER is case studies. Two case studies to incorporate into nursing
education are iron-deficiency
anemia and one on thrombocytopenia.
Case studies can be in-class group activities or completed individually prior
to class. In addition, I found an electrocardiogram
game that nursing students could play to help solidify knowledge on ECGs.
Linda, I found great information on the MERLOT site that my future HIM students can use. The learning materials for health sciences covers a lot of territory in the medical field. The website is simple to access and navigate through. The different types of material such as animated, presentation, and case study give the students options that will motivate them to research further. Thank you for the information.
ReplyDeleteDot, MERLOT is one of my favorite resource sites.
ReplyDelete