“Digital
technologies can play a powerful role in improving the health of people
worldwide,” says Bernardo Mariano, director of WHO’s
Department of Digital health and Innovation. Digital health expands primary
healthcare and helps healthcare professionals to fight together against new
diseases. In the upcoming year, the technical advisory group members will meet
regularly to implement their plan of action in support of WHO’s digital health
agenda. Diverse experts from government, civil society, and technology are
committed with WHO to meet the needs of global health. Source:
World Health Organization
Problem-based learning
approach with the application of online content and face-to-face teaching
method is effective in building communities of practice (CoPs).
Davies AC and team has conducted a study to determine
whether problem-based-learning (PBL) with the flipped style of teaching
approach is effective in the formation of communities of practice (CoPs) or not.
The qualitative research study and a group-centered PBL
integrated approach included eightclinical bioinformatics students from three
cohortsgroups.Recruitment, interviews, and analysis was performed by the qualified
researchers from the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE). Emails, WhatsApp,
and other web-based forum were the means of communication between the students
during the study period.
Each interview was around one hour, which included set of not
more than 10 questions. The interview
conversation was audio recorded, formally transcribed, and stored. The
interviews revealed the experience and involvement of the students’.
Ten emergent themes were identified from the data. Research
findings addressed questions like, what extent do the students experience
isolation in practice, to what extent do CoPs exist within the cohorts, and
whether the course design is involved in the development of CoPs.
The study concluded that the problem-based learning was more
preferred than the traditional lecture-based learning. Additionally, PBL
approach helped in the developing professional networks between the colleagues
working in multidisciplinary teams within the workplace.
Reference:
Davies AC, Harris D, Banks-Gatenby A, Brass A. Problem-based
learning in clinical bioinformatics education: Does it help to create
communities of practice? PLoS Comput Biol. 2019 Jun 27; 15(6):e1006746.
