Session 9 - Written Correspondence

Policies & Procedures

We started by discussing the Policies & Procedures assignment. They had some difficulties finding things on the website I had given them. I had asked them to work together using the discussion forum but they couldn't work out how to post. Oops! My mistake. I should have given them instructions. Next time I will upload Discussion Forum Use instructions to the wiki.

Written Correspondence

Needed to determine their Word skills - used a Poll and they both consider themselves experts who know how to insert footers in documents. Found out that Stephen uses a Mac.

Used File Transfer to give them their assessment task. Which they should have no trouble with.

We discussed:

• letterheads
• footers
• medical reports
• assessment task

Last Session

Next week is the last session and as all of their assessment will be complete, I decided to do more medical terminology. We will do the medical terminology associated with medical investigations, procedures and equipment. This will be a challenge for me to prepare the learning resources before I go into hospital.

Reflection

I cannot find instructions I thought I wrote on using the Discussion Forum to the Discussion page so will have to write them after my eyes work again.

Reflecting on the whole course, I think that this is the worst mistake I have made.

Session 8 - Urinary System and Policies & Procedures

Urinary System

Urinary system went well. As well as the usual prefixes, combining forms, suffixes and the diseases & disorders that the participants pronounce and tell us the meaning of, I added the assessment tasks I use with my f2f students.

They took half of each and used a line from the whiteboard tools to match the Medical term to the definition. Then they read it to us. It worked well and gave them something different to do. Next time I will allot each student a colour for their lines so that we can tell which student did which work. 

I also put the text of a medical report on a slide and italicised the medical terms, then asked each participant to say the medical term and explain what it meant - this also worked well.

When I asked if they had encountered any problems during the week, they were a little confused about ureters and urethra. I always draw a diagram on the whiteboard of the urinary system for my f2f students so I decided to do the same. On the Problems slide I drew the urinary system and then used a pointer to explain the connections. It seemed to clarify the confusion.

Policies & Procedures

I used file transfer to send Assessment 2 to the learners. Then set about preparing them for the assessment.

I encouraged thought and discussion of the importance of Policies & Procedures by asking participants to write on the whiteboard. I approved their suggestions with a ClipArt tick

Then I asked them how they could improve their knowledge of medical terminology - how they could find out what a medical term they do not know means. Once again they wrote on the whiteboard. they came up with some great ideas.

Reflection

I am realising more and more that I can do pretty much anything online that I can do in f2f class. This has enabled me to try different things and add interest to the online sessions. My students are very supportive so I feel safe to try different things.