BACKGROUND:Although current literature supports the benefits of family-centered rounds on medical education, few studies have explored students' perceptions of family-centered rounds.PURPOSE:The aim of this study was to provide a better and broader understanding of the effect of family-centered rounds on medical student education.METHODS:During the inpatient portion of the third-year pediatric clerkship at a southeastern United States 4-year medical school, students were exposed to family-centered and conference room work rounds and completed a post-hoc reflective open-ended questionnaire. The study was conducted from July to December 2007 and the inpatient experience was at one of two large academic medical centers. Using a constant comparative approach, the qualitative content of 45 of the 63 potential students' responses was analyzed.RESULTS:Family-centered rounds served as an opportunity for medical students to build their practice-based knowledge through direct and simultaneous interaction with the medical team, patients, and families. Family member communication, medical team communication, and increased exposure to patients allowed for unique learning opportunities such as augmentation of communication skills, practice with use of lay terms, legitimate peripheral participation, and humanizing cognitive understanding of diseases. Areas of concern noted by the students included space limitations, length of rounds, potential anxiety provoked in the patient, and faculty and resident comfort with teaching certain topics.CONCLUSIONS:Our qualitative analysis of medical student perceptions on family-centered rounds suggests that pediatric medical student education may benefit by improving knowledge and practice with communication and humanizing disease processes. However, perceived barriers, such as concerns about space or instructor comfort with teaching certain topics, existed. Further studies are warranted to gain a better understanding of the educational impact of conducting this type of rounds.

Objective. Given that pediatricians cite low competency in developmental screening, this study aims to effectively teach screening to residents. Design. Using a quasiexperimental design, residents received an educational module and one-on-one teaching of 3 validated developmental screeners (Denver II, ASQ [Ages and Stages Questionnaire], and PEDS [Parents’ Evaluation of Developmental Status]), with subsequent independent use with all 3 screeners with their own continuity patients. Outcome measures included changes in knowledge, skills, and preferences. Results. All residents achieved significantly increased skills with all screeners. They strongly preferred the ASQ (70%), citing that this taught them normal (30.2%) and pathological (27.9%) development while negatively noting time (72.1%), scheduling issues (30.2%), and difficulties with child cooperation (20.9%). Knowledge specifics did not significantly increase. Conclusions. In-depth developmental screening education revealed marked improvement in skills and preferences. These evaluations led to full adoption of the ASQ in resident clinics. Future research must test if effective development teaching in residency leads to increased routine screenings in practice.

K-12 virtual schooling is gaining recognition as an alternative to the traditional face-to-face educational setting by providing students with access to anytime, anywhere learning opportunities. There is a current need for research on the pedagogy of K-12 virtual school teaching in order to understand the coordination of content, pedagogy, and technology underlying the delivery of a virtual school course. The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding for the instructional practices of K-12 virtual school teachers. The findings resulting from this analysis highlight the relationship between the participants' beliefs, goals, and practices related to virtual school teaching. Analysis revealed several unique qualities of the practices used by virtual school teachers that have relevant implications for the training programs educating virtual school teachers, the developing body of policy underlying virtual schools, and future research.

There is current interest from the field of education into the value of video games to support learning. Research investigating outcomes associated with video game play has just begun to scratch the surface of their educational potential. Further exploration needs to focus on the internal processes of the play, specifically the relationship between the utilization of cognitive skills, the learning process, and a player’s experience with playing video games. Drawing support from the field of expertise, the research presented in this chapter looks at this relationship by comparing the processes used by video game players based on their level of experience. Results from this study add to the understanding of the relationship between experience, cognition, and learning from video game play. The results of this research also have implications for educational game design and the pedagogical techniques used to make effective learning opportunities available to all learners.

Limited data exists related to teaching and learning in K-12 virtual schools. This paper builds upon a recent study related to successful practices of K-12 online instructors. The paper describes the utilization of a survey built upon qualitatively derived best practices of K-12 online instructors and provides the opportunity to relate these practices to teacher’s perceived professional development needs. Outcomes indicate that virtual school instructors identify online presence, diligent student monitoring and an enjoyment of technology among factors that contribute to virtual school instructor success. Instructors also identified face-to-face student mentors as a key component for success. Respondents felt that they would benefit from professional development focused on technological skills, content-based technological integration and evaluative resources for online learners. The paper concludes with a call for additional research to refine and implement the assessment.

Virtual schools are rising in popularity and presence. Unfortunately, there is a relative dearth of research related to teaching and learning in virtual schools. Although there are numerous handbooks addressing teaching online, there is little research on successful online teaching in the K-12 arena. Much of the existing research focused on teaching online is rooted in face-toface content, not focused on content areas, built upon a post-secondary audience, or fails to use data from the teachers themselves to triangulate findings. This article reports on a study of 16 virtual school teachers from the Michigan Virtual School (MVS). It reports on best-practices from the interviews conducted with MVS teachers; and also provides research triangulation for those practices. The paper concludes with implications for policy, research, and practice.

With an increasing prevalence of virtual high school programs in the United States, a better understanding of evaluative tools available for distance educators and administrators is needed. These evaluative tools would provide opportunities for assessment and a determination of success within virtual schools. This article seeks to provide an analysis and classification of instrumentation currently available. It addresses issues regarding the limited arsenal of assessments and evaluation instrumentation for virtual schools.

Games and gaming have always been an infl uential part of society and culture. Within the last 35 years, due to numerous technology innovations, electronic games in many formats have become ubiquitous in everyday life. This ubiquity has meant that games and gaming have permeated into many fi elds and disciplines for multiple purposes including teaching and learning. Past research has examined the use of both electronic and non-electronic games, but the fi eld of education still lacks a comprehensive framework for exploring the role of the games for teaching and learning, the relationship of educational games to other fi elds, and a synthesis of best practice for current and future design, implementation, and research. The purpose of this article is to set a framework for understanding past, current, and future research in educational gaming. In doing so, we also hope to continue a conversation within education as well as with other fi elds that advance research, development and practice within a common framework.

Background: At most institutions, medical students learn communication skills through the use of standardized patients (SPs), but SPs are time and resource expensive. Virtual patients (VPs) may offer several advantages over SPs, but little data exist regarding the use of VPs in teaching communication skills. Therefore, we report our initial efforts to create an interactive virtual clinical scenario of a patient with acute abdominal pain to teach medical students history-taking and communication skills.Methods: In the virtual scenario, a life-sized VP is projected on the wall of an examination room. Before the virtual encounter, the student reviews patient information on a handheld tablet personal computer, and they are directed to take a history and develop a differential diagnosis. The virtual system includes 2 networked personal computers (PCs), 1 data projector, 2 USB2 Web cameras to track the user's head and hand movement, a tablet PC, and a microphone. The VP is programmed with specific answers and gestures in response to questions asked by students. The VP responses to student questions were developed by reviewing videotapes of students' performances with real SPs. After obtaining informed consent, 20 students underwent voice recognition training followed by a videotaped VP encounter. Immediately after the virtual scenario, students completed a technology and SP questionnaire (Maastricht Simulated Patient Assessment).Results: All participants had prior experience with real SPs. Initially, the VP correctly recognized approximately 60% of the student's questions, and improving the script depth and variability of the VP responses enhanced most incorrect voice recognition. Student comments were favorable particularly related to feedback provided by the virtual instructor. The overall student rating of the virtual experience was 6.47 +/- 1.63 (1 = lowest, 10 = highest) for version 1.0 and 7.22 +/- 1.76 for version 2.0 (4 months later) reflecting enhanced voice recognition and other technological improvements. These overall ratings compare favorably to a 7.47 +/- 1.16 student rating for real SPs.Conclusions: Despite current technological limitations, virtual clinical scenarios could provide students a controllable, secure, and safe learning environment with the opportunity for extensive repetitive practice with feedback without consequence to a real or SP. (c) 2006 Excerpta Medica Inc. All rights reserved.