Collaborating, teaching and learning in a cyberspace community: a virtual AGE experience

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Digital Learning Environments
• Interprofessional Education

Background:

• Collaborative learning enhances healthcare education.
• Web-based environments facilitate inter-institutional partnerships.
• Virtual health-care teams prepare students for modern practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe and evaluate a semester-long collaborative online project between two universities.
• To assess the outcomes of virtual health-care teams in a web-based learning environment.
• To identify successes and lessons learned from faculty and students involved in the project.

Main Methods:

• A semester-long project involving 22 students from two universities.
• Students worked in six virtual health-care teams.
• Teams completed team contracts, electronic patient medical records, and patient care plans using faculty-developed learning objects for Virtual AGE (vAGE-Active Gerontology Education).
• Regular participation in discussion threads was required.

Main Results:

• Successful completion of team contracts, electronic medical records, and patient care plans.
• Active student engagement in online discussion threads.
• Identification of key successes and challenges in the collaborative web-based learning experience.

Conclusions:

• Web-based collaborative projects can effectively integrate students from different institutions.
• Virtual health-care team experiences provide valuable learning opportunities.
• Lessons learned can inform future development of online interprofessional education initiatives.