PebblePad and Personal and Professional

Development in the School of Medicine

Glenn MasonSchool of MedicineBlended Learning Forum June 2013

PebblePad at UWS

• New version of PebblePad called PebblePlus– New interface– Administrative backend now called ATLAS

• Introduced beginning of at UWS in 2012• Still in trial phase• Medicine, Music and Industrial Design

What is PebblePad?

• Often called an ‘online portfolio’– PebblePad– Mahara

• Developed using educational principles• Capacity to– Encourage student reflection– Encourage collaboration– Encourage ongoing formative feedback from

tutors

Educational affordances of PebblePad

Collaboration

Formative feedback

Reflection

What is personal and professional development?

• Doctors deal with people not machines• All those things that aren’t scientific!– Culture– Ethics– Society– Communication– Empathy

How are we using it in years 1 & 2?

• Personal and professional development (PPD) component of MBBS degree

• Covering a range of content areas– Year 1

• 125 year 1 students• 12 tutorial groups• 7 assessment requirements

– Year 2• 134 students• 12 tutorial groups• 7 assessment requirements

How are we using it in year 4 ?

– Students on Mental Health and Obstetrics rotations complete reflective learning journals over 9 week period

– 135 students– 4 groups (~ 35 students in each group)– 2 tutors for each group

The PPD team

• Curriculum designer with clinical background

• Educational technology advisor

• Year coordinators

• Tutors

How PebblePad works

• 2 ways to get in– Single sign on through vUWS (vuws.uws.edu.au)– V3.pebblepad.com.au using vUWS login

• Flash-based

But there’s also an HTML version/interface

Personal learning space

Personal learning space– Students use and create resources, submit activities etc.– Tutors can create templates and resources,

shareable documents etc.

ATLAS or the institutional space

The institutional space- Primarily for tutors/staff- Provide feedback- admin/backend functions

Year 1 learning activities

• Learning and studying medicine– First year out of high school– How do you learn?

Year 1 learning activities

• The Hippocratic Oath– Collaborative and reflective activity– What does being a doctor mean to you?

Year 2 learning activities

• Experiencing mental illness (reflective and collaborative)– Students fill out questionnaire on attitudes to

mental illness

Year 2 learning activities

– Further classroom-based activities (film and discussion)

– Submit group reflections on tutorial

Year 4 learning journal

• Summatively assessed– Assessment rubric provides guidelines

• Obstetrics and mental health rotations• 6 weekly reflections• 2 wrap-up reflection• 1 final post

Year 4 learning journal

Student feedback and PebblePad

• Students unfamiliar with unorthodox interface– Need for more instructional material

• Not fully compatible with iPad• Tutors need to be competent users– PPD sessions on PebblePad were conducted

• Passage of time increases value of PebblePad– Hard to evaluate at this stage

Possibilities for future use

• Problem-based learning– Group reflection– Personal reflection

• Clinical assessments– Submission of forms using PebblePad’s form

builder

Questions?