5.1 Examples of activities to support Practice

Learning through practice enables the learner to adapt their actions to the task goal, and use the feedback to improve their next action. Feedback may come from self-reflection, from peers, from the teacher, or from the activity itself, if it shows them how to improve the rest of their action in relation to the goal.

So how might this look for our three teaching modes?


Face to Face On Campus	Tools & Resources	Online Synchronous	Tools & Resources	Online Asynchronous	Tools & Resources
Lab sessions for undertaking practice experiments	Lab space	Teacher-led remote lab sessions with student interaction	Use of zoom for communication as well as any identified resources for undertaking experiment.	Virtual lab activities which students post results to online spaces	Use of virtual lab tools - https://www.merlot.org/merlot/materials.htm?keywords=virtual+lab&sort.property=relevance
Role-play of scenarios with fellow students, for example patient-facing situations	Students Task	Students role-play in small groups during a live online teaching session. Feedback to class as a whole maybe with aggregation of responses	Web conferencing facility, brief/task. Polling software	A virtual patient or simulation, pre-coded with options and patient responses. As extension activity students produce their own simulation tool	Microsoft Forms with branching, or virtual patient platform.
Practical Skills development sessions such as clinical skills / use of equipment etc	Bespoke space with relevant equipment Clinical Skills Centre HARC Simulation suites / wards	These skills cannot be developed without physical resources. How to videos can be provided and tasks set asking students to outline the steps involved in a particular examination in theory. For some skills where only limited equipment is required and it is low risk activity (such as wound dressing) students could be sent equipment and ask a family member to video them performing the task but this would be extremely limited and require thorough risk assessment.
Communication skills practicals	Tutor, student, task, room	Tutor can provide task to student in advance and then individually (or in small groups) role play with the student. The tutor acting as the patient/ carer/ owner. Then providing feedback afterwards. This can also be done with two students role playing and tutor/ other students providing feedback	Tutor/ Task Online space such as Zoom or Teams. Recordings can be made (with permission) for students to watch back and reflect on their performance.	Not appropriate
Live experience of practice	Face to face appropriate learning context	Students learn key practice competencies via formative MCQs groupwork with live feedback: Ask the Q, students vote, then discussion, then students vote again. Tutor provides feedback after 2nd vote.	Zoom/Teams, polling software	Students learn key practice competencies via formative MCQs with automatic feedback	VLE: Quiz tool to set up MCQs with automatic feedback. Possible to randomise the questions and retake until confident/competency level reached
Reflective discussion - group	Face to face - with tutor support Students share reflections on their experience of practice (pair / group / class)	Reflective discussion online.	Online (Zoom/Teams) with tutor support, students share reflections of their experience of practice (pair/group/class) (e.g. use of breakout rooms before feeding back to class)	Reflective discussion asynchronous	VLE: guided use of online discussion forum with tutor prompt questions
Individual use of reflective tool e.g. Pebblepad	This is already a remote Asynchronous activity You may need to structure in more prompts for the student to engage with the reflective tool, or create additional ways for them to share their reflections with others
Case-based learning: students work together as a group to build their knowledge and examine the case	Face to face - appropriate teaching space for groupwork, preferably with good WIFI connection	Case-based learning: students work together as a group to build their knowledge and examine the case	Zoom/Teams: break out rooms and shared documents	Case-based learning: students work together as a group to build their knowledge and examine the case	VLE: use of student groups, shared documents, communication tools, possibly wiki/discussion forums. Groups feedback to entire cohort via central discussion forum
Tutors or students invite guest speaker / guest lecturer / employer	Face to face classroom, presentation tools	Guest speakers are invited via webinar. Activity with a great twist: students do the organisation, running and facilitation of the webinar presentation with guest speaker [this is the practice bit= practicing online facilitation skills, online communication]	Webinar tool: Zoom or Ms Teams. Students might need to use Teams or similar to organise. Activity credit to Sharpe (2016) - great resource for webinar support on page 134	Students could record an interview with the guest speaker and produce this as a video for their peers, plus invite them to answer Qs via a discussion board. Extra: Peers could comment or ask Qs and produce a trailer of the interview or disseminate highlights on social media - if relevant and permitted	Video or screen recording tool (e.g. Ms Teams, Canvas Studio). Discussion board in VLE or open-source tool (guest speaker allowed to be invited - eg Teams). Social media tool (Twitter, LinkedIn)
Computer lab session	Computer lab, tutor	Using video conferencing tools and share the screen, VL, VR	Video conferencing tools, Students need to have computer devices suitable for the task	Virtual lab, simulation or recorded tutorial and troubleshooting session	Simulation tools, lab tools, or video recording facilities
Field trip	Appropriate field of research/observation/practice, tutor, suitable equipment	Maybe one person with cameras can be in the field, drone, simulation, VL, AR	Cameras, simulation packages, AI, VR	Data and packages would be available to students to work with in their own time	Cameras, simulation packages, AI, VR