Fifteen years of experience really makes a difference

Imagine a teaching situation in which a medical student is on board the emergency medical service (EMS) vehicle during an emergency response. His or her job is to give first aid to a cyclist involved in an accident with a vehicle. The cyclist’s injuries are extensive, while the student’s experience is modest. But help is at hand – or rather at eye-level – as the medical student is wearing a pair of ‘Google glasses’ which film the injured person, while the student also uses the glasses to consult his or her support team and make use of various reference works on everything from immobilising the neck to stopping severe bleeding.

This may sound like a sci-fi film, and neither is the scenario real. At least not yet. But it is one of the ideas currently being worked on at the Department Organization of Study Programmes and Learning with Media at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, which received a visit from three secretariat staff from the Department of Clinical Medicine a couple of weeks ago.

The visit was funded by the Erasmus programme, as the Austrian university is renowned for being at the forefront of internet-based teaching and new pedagogical methods, which they began working with all the way back in 2002. Another good reason for visiting Graz is that the university is comparable with our own in terms of size etc.

From Google glasses til virtual microscopes

"It was really inspirational – eye-opening and surprising – to see how far you can come after 15 years working on what we call ‘new’ pedagogical tools, as our colleagues in Graz have been doing," says Studies Secretary Lise Licht from the Department of Clinical Medicine, who was one of the employees on the trip.

“One of the things we noticed as guests was how natural it is for our colleagues in Graz to integrate computer technology in teaching in all conceivable contexts. This is true right down to the smallest detail, where the students sit and work with virtual microscopes and scan what they are going to examine more closely onto their computer. It suddenly becomes very clear that we have only just begun to exploit the possibilities here at home," says Lise Licht.

Her travelling companions and colleagues Emil Jensen and Christian Ravn Olesen, who are both administrative officers at the department, had a similar experience. They were also impressed by the unhindered approach to the pedagogical tools that we have only used at Aarhus for a couple of years at most.

See yourself in a new perspective

"They say that practice makes perfect, and during the study trip it became clear to us that fifteen years of experience really makes a difference", as Christian Ravn Olsen puts it when describing one of the things they all realised during the study trip.

Another joint realisation can be summarised thus; As an AU employee, you should definitely go on a study trip. Get out there and get shaken up and see yourself and the way the faculty 'usually does things' in a new light.

"All three of us were really buzzing from the study trip, even though it only lasted two days. It is thought-provoking how much energy you get from travelling somewhere and experiencing how friendly and helpful people are," says Lise Licht. Together with her two colleagues Emil Jensen and Christian Ravn Olsen, she has brought plenty of useful knowledge home with her.

Ant not only about the Austrian edition of 'acute-weeks' making use of voice-controlled Google glasses, so that the wearer can say “Okay glasses, take a photo” followed by “okay glass, send it to…”, but also in the form of recognisable issues, including the necessity of ongoing didactic support for lecturers.

Development tasks cannot be ticked off

One example is how Graz has employed a didactic consultant who tours the different departments and motivates the lecturers to rethink their teaching. Once the consultant has visited all the departments, she starts again and repeats the same tour. This ensures that newly-arrived teaching staff get help to begin with and it also prevents the experienced lecturers from falling into a comfort zone or thinking that the development project can just be ticked off.

"Teaching development is an ongoing process, and in Graz they try to support it with a specialist who comes round again and again. It seems to work really well," says Lise Licht.

Another example of a new approach is that the university in Graz is currently testing a five-week period, in which the students must concentrate on one subject area that concludes with an exam, before going on to the next period. The new periods replace the traditional way of thinking in half-yearly semesters, though there are no current plans to alter these in Aarhus.

Erasmus grants – quick and easy

"Of course, you cannot simply transfer everything one-to-one, but a lot of it can be used anyway. We have met a lot of competent and committed people who can do something different than we can, and commitment tends to be contagious and lead to new ideas about what you can add to, for example, the new teaching we ourselves are building – and which we certainly do not wish to detract from," says Christian Ravn Olesen.

The three colleagues from the secretariat were abroad with funding from the Erasmus Staff Mobility scheme. All employees at Aarhus University can apply for a scholarship for either a study visit or for what is known as job shadowing at an Erasmus partner institution. There is no application deadline, but you must apply no later than one month before leaving. For more information about opportunities and restrictions, please see http://medarbejdere.au.dk/administration/internationalt/erasmusstipendierforansatte/erasmustraeningsopholdiudlandet/

The University of Graz also wrote about the visit from Aarhus (in German).

The article can be found via the university's news site (scroll down):
https://www.medunigraz.at/en/neues/newspage/3/