Reflections Week 5

Reflections for this week... Let me see... I had problems (still having) with my computer. That did not help me at all. Also, I had difficulty understanding what I was doing with the assignment. I'm still unsure.

I am beginning to get the idea that one has to make a concerted effort to develop and use assessment tools that match the learning objectives for the course. That, while it may be intuitive to most, is in and of itself a big step for me.

I was particularly pleased and interested in the studies of plagiarism and keeping students honest. This has been a major effort on my behalf for some years. I teach a class on Ethics to Term 6 students (out of 10). The class is focused mostly on the kind of ethical issues that the students are likely to face in clinical practice. I begin by telling them that practice today is a mine field and my job is to give them a map. Their job is to keep the map handy and refer to it when necessary. I have no illusions that a 2 hour course will make them ethical people.

This past year I introduced a sort of blended course for incoming students. The course is a mixture of online activities that I learned in this program, combined with 4 face to face sessions. The goal of this course is to alert the students to issues such as plagiarism, cheating, and behavioral issues that might confront them as students in a professional program. The course was designed to be a pass/fail but I'm considering modifying that based on some of the things that I have learned this term.