| Abstract/Notes |
Introduction: Transitioning the student doctor from a didactic educational style to a situation where more integrative thought and problem solving skills are required has been a goal throughout chiropractic education. Helping the student correlate lecture and laboratory materials within the curriculum, in a clinically relevant format, can facilitate the development of clinical reasoning and a greater understanding of individual patient presentations. Exposing the students to varied patient presentations, as well as the use of multiple resources and technologies, can foster the needed clinical reasoning and decision-making skills, as well as improve recall and knowledge management. In order to broaden the students’ perspectives relative to instructional technology, a student-centered, inquiry oriented activity called a Webquest was utilized. Webquests are designed to be time efficient for the student as well as allowing for students to focus on the given information and supporting their levels of synthesis, analysis and evaluation. The instructor is able to integrate numerous learning strategies into one assignment and therefore create a dynamic learning opportunity for students. Methods: Subjects were 123 students in a fourth trimester upper extremities course at New York Chiropractic College. The assignment was a clinical upper extremity case study designed as a short term Webquest activity. The Webquest assignment was placed on the college’s intranet, allowing students to have greater access to the material. The topic was an upper extremity pain case presentation and the students were asked to work in groups of four, which they self selected. Each group was asked to perform five tasks in relation to the topic: create a differential diagnosis list; rule in and rule out each diagnosis on the differential list; arrive at a final diagnosis; give an example of the same diagnosis; and develop a treatment plan. The students are given a combination of resources which are available online and on reserve in the library. Results: Of the 123 students completing the assignment, 69 responded to the student perception survey. Student perception of the assignment was favorable, with 49/69 being introduced to new resources via the web and textbooks on reserve in the library, 61/69 students having a greater understanding of a case presentation and 38/69 felt they were more prepared for lecture. Discussion: Upon evaluation, it was found that the Webquest assignment enhanced the development on interactive, problem solving skills and assisted the students in correlating classroom materials into a clinical format. Additionally, a significant numbers of students were exposed to new resources, gained new access to educational materials, and facilitated discussion in relation to lecture material. The student centered assignment also allowed for the students to determine what issues of this case presentation they would like to address and how they would like to do so in the form of small group discussions and cooperative learning. This in turn encouraged the students to obtain a higher level of complex cognition. The current study has identified that the utilization of integrative educational technologies within a chiropractic curriculum can be an efficient and effective form of presenting case studies. Further, this process has great potential to facilitate the correlation of clinical concepts across and through a chiropractic curriculum. This abstract is reproduced with the permission of the publisher. |
