The selection of my practical implementation for the e-Learning module:

For this purpose, as I did with the other modules, I looked for something that I actually need to develop and implement in the academic programs I am involved in. Let’s describe the setting: I am currently mostly involved in the teaching of undergraduate MBChB III as Chemical Pathology integrated to other branches of pathology and in the postgraduate training of Diploma and MSc in Chemical Pathology. The MBChB course runs mostly in tutorials, it would benefit from some e-learning support but I find more critical the area of the postgraduate training. The postgrad diploma runs in 6 modules which are organized according to the major biochemical diagnostic systems applied to Health Sciences. With this systemic approach I had to include in each module the relevant technical components of the lab methods, for this purpose I had to ensure that all methodologies required as programme outcomes are somehow included along the program. One of the aspects common to all the modules is the Quality Control (QC) technicalities and their variants.

The way it is curriculated currently, the laboratory QC needs to be done bit by bit along the program and then concretized as an integrated map at the end of the program. This kind of association is advantageous for the development of higher level learning (let’s say synthetic and creative level of Bloom’s taxonomy) but it keeps on taking the students back to add the pre-existing information and does not favour the parallel comparison of different QC techniques.

Each and every laboratory technique has a specific way of assessing the QC performance. Evaluation of QC results has different approaches, sometimes we need to look at individual results and sometimes all the individual results have to be analyzed as a sequence of events for a broader appreciation of the overall quality. The real lab QC performance runs as intra and inter-laboratory programs and even though the program includes service training the students’ exposure to the wide variety of possible results would be random. Evaluation of QC performance is an area which requires a lot of practice, analysis and a lot of visual aid; it is, in fact, routinely followed by graphs.

Thus, I think that both the program curriculum and the students’ learning would benefit from an e-Learning course that they can take some time after the introductory module to load them with the basics on QC early in the program. I think that all the generic advantages of the e-Learning (as discussed in the previous post) will then add value to this vision.

In summary:
My e-Learning mission is to develop an e-Learning module for the “Basic Laboratory QC Evaluation” to be embedded into the first semester of academic program of the Postgraduate Diploma in Chemical Pathology (PGD CP), at Walter Sisulu University.