Objective 3: Teaching and Learning Strategies to Foster IPE Learning

Educator Role

In addition to providing your own student with specific skills and knowledge on collaborative practice you will also be providing other health disciplines with the knowledge to become more effective health care collaborators. As an educator you can teach collaborative practice through the following teaching and learning strategies:

Teaching and Learning Strategies

Being a role model; Building a safe learning environment; Informal patient shadowing; Formal patient shadowing
Being a Role Model Reflection
  • How to you currently teach students about collaborative practice?
  • If you were a student would you be able to observe collaboration (during rounds, documentation, talking to the patient)?
  • How do you make this collaboration explicit to your student and other health professional students?
  • Do you provide feedback on collaborative practice competencies/skills?

Walk the Talk; Teach as you Preach; Set a Good Example.

Implicit Role Modeling

As a preceptor you model the collaborative behavior you would like the students to practice. For example,

  • Discussing patient cases with care team
  • Understanding and discussing the roles and contributions of the other professions
  • Respectful discussions with team members
  • Inclusion of the patient

The assumption of implicit role modeling is that students will naturally 'pick-up' your role modeling behaviors.  Without explicit discussion of the collaborative aspect of practice, it has been shown that only "walking the talk" is not as effective as explicit role modeling.

Explicit Role Modeling

This involves explicitly talking to students about your role as a collaborative team member.

  • Talking out loud about the collaborative relationships you engage in
  • Explicitly including team and patient goals in your charting
  • Refer to other team members in your discussion with patients and family members
  • Discussing the roles of the team members with your student

Building a Safe Learning Environment

Establishing a learning environment that enables students to take risks and move outside their professional boundaries is one of the foundations for a successful IP placement experience. A safe learning environment will:

  • Enable students to ask questions beyond their professional scope
  • Support them in working with other team members
Reflection
  • Think back to a learning situation where you were afraid to take risks, for example, not attempting a new task for fear of failing.
  • Think back to a situation where you felt comfortable in your learning, for example, being able to ask questions of your preceptor.
  • Identify two attributes of a supportive and safe learning environment:

As an IP Clinical Educator you foster a supportive and safe learning environment by:

  • Welcoming the students to the team
  • Involving students in your discussions
  • Clarifying any discipline specific terms/short forms
  • Recognizing students may not have a clear understanding of your discipline
  • Allowing students to ask questions about your role
  • Encouraging reciprocal feedback
  • Sharing your own experiences working in collaborative practice (positive, negative, humorous)
  • Having students see their contributions to the team
  • Being aware of the students level of collaborative competency
  • Recognizing and appreciating the individual differences among students

Formal Shadowing: Developing an Understanding of Your Colleagues

Part of the rich learning that occurs in an IP placement is the experience of observing other professionals. While students may have a general understanding of the roles of various health professionals, it is the experience of ‘walking in another persons shoes’ that they can begin to appreciate the perspectives each member brings to the team. While there will be a formal shadowing experience that students participate in, informal shadowing experiences can also occur throughout the placement.

Goals of the Formal Shadowing Experience

By the end of the shadow experiences the students will:

  1. be able to describe the roles and scopes of the other team members
  2. demonstrate an increased comfort level with the team members, through increased collaboration

As a member of the IPE Placement Team you can facilitate learning during the shadow by:

  • Providing a clear description of your role within the team
  • Developing a handout of a general description of your profession - the other areas they may work, the educational background etc.
  • Providing case examples of how you collaborate with team members
  • Planning to bring the student along to an initial assessment or treatment session to let them observe what you do
  • Integrating the students discipline into the experience - ask them how they would view the situation and provide them with a new perspective on the situation
  • Being open to student questions - they may feel hesitant to ask or feel embarrassed that they are not familiar with your profession
  • Don’t assume they understand your profession - take the time to slowly describe and define your role
  • Being clear as to the expectations of the student - can they ask questions in front of the patient, will you be asking them questions, do they need to prepare anything ahead of time

Informal Shadowing: Taking advantage of the IPE Teachable Moment

You may not be involved in a formal shadow with each of the students, but you can take the opportunity to have a student watch an initial assessment, intervention or a small sample of you job.

Take advantage of the “IP teachable moment”. Some ideas:

  • Take time to demonstrate a procedure/assessment/intervention if another student is present
  • “talk out loud” your clinical reasoning with other students
  • Review your involvement in the patient
  • Ask questions of other students
  • Be open to answering questions a student may have about your role