PP202 - Incorporating Blended Learning in Building Foundational Clinical Skills

Given the widespread use of blended online and in-person learning experiences in higher education, clinical educators in audiology should explore ways to integrate online learning into their  curriculum.
We describe a blended approach to teaching aural rehabilitation knowledge and skills to future clinicians at The George Washington University. An important issue is measuring the engagement of students with the online material. We used a combination of qualitative and quantitative metrics to assess student performance. Results suggest high student engagement with the online portion of the teaching module. The blended approach implemented provides several benefits beyond the typical didactic approach,

Summary:

Rationale.Utilizing technology to provide diverse and engaging learning experiences for students has become more common. Its acceptance and use was accelerated and expanded during the pandemic. It is important for clinical educators to find ways to integrate online learning into their  curriculum. At the George Washington University department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, we have been developing a blended approach to teaching aural rehabilitation knowledge and skills for future clinicians.

Design.

A blended instructional approach was implemented that combined formal lecture, discussion, and use of an automated web-based visual and audio-visual testing and training program. Undergraduate students in speech and hearing science and graduate speech language pathology students were taught foundational skills of lipreading, audiovisual speech perception, and speechreading training. Using a didactic approach, students were provided with a basic introduction to our scientific understanding of visual speech perception, the importance of audio visual speech for successful communication in a variety of listening environments, and how this knowledge base contributes to a successful lipreading/speechreading training program. Outside the classroom, an experiential learning approach was implemented using a web-based speech perception testing and training system. The students completed shortened portions of testing and training to engage them in modeling behavior. Bandura’s Social Learning Theory has been used to prove modeling can be used for learning and behavior change. Student completion of the online task was tracked by the on-line system. Following completion of the experiential learning, students responded to a series of reflective prompts to engage them in critical thinking about lipreading/speechreading and its use in aural rehabilitation. 

Results

Across all classes there was a high level of compliance with completing the web-based experiential learning. Qualitative assessment of the student responses to writing prompts makes it clear that students are learning important foundational knowledge of receptive language and vital components of a successful training program. In addition, prompt responses were quantitatively analyzed to measure frequency of word use and positive and negative sentiment in the responses. These measures provide further insight into the students’ experience with the web based activity. 

 Conclusions.

One challenge with incorporating online learning is ensuring student engagement. A key measure of student learning is engagement. However, defining student engagement is difficult. For this blended learning activity, the definition provided by Greene et al. is most appropriate “the effort, both in time and energy, students commit to educationally purposeful activities.”  We measured both completion of tasks and reflective responses to question prompts. The discussion questions initiate cognitive engagement. Fredricks et al. defines cognitive engagement as “focused effort learners give to effectively understand what is being taught.” Student responses demonstrate that learning objectives were successfully met. When using computer learning in blending learning, it is important to determine how student engagement will occur and how it may be measured to achieve the learning objectives. Using technology to help engage students in modeling behavior can be successful for building foundational knowledge.