• Why demand for PebblePad in Medical Education is accelerating.

    by Paul Duvall

 

Why demand for PebblePad in Medical Education is accelerating.

~ Medical Education ~

AUGUST 14th 2019· by Paul Duvall

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ABOUT THIS BLOG POST

Medical education is a challenging and ever-changing discipline. As a result, medical educators are continually searching for new teaching and technology tools to prepare doctors for the crucial role they'll fulfil once they graduate. This short blog post from a new-ish addition to Team PebblePad, Paul Duvall, Implementation Specialist and resident expert on all things medical education, focuses on the current challenges faced by medical schools and discusses how PebblePad's Learning Journey Platform can offer solutions to overcome them. The blog post also contains links to our new medical education page and publication, which both contain several case studies (including an award-winning example) from the world of medicine and the healthcare sector.

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The ‘mission-critical’ requirement to develop dynamic, future-ready medical graduates in real-world settings is resulting in many medical schools across the UK looking at ways to bolster their learning ecology with tools to better support and guide experiential learning and bridge the theory - practice gap.

PebblePad Medical Education Guide, 2019.

 
 
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UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGES  

Medical education is regulated by frameworks which medical schools must comply with to ensure consistency of experience and to quality assure the standards of medical graduates entering the workplace. This requirement introduces the need for substantial workplace-based assessment during clinical placements, requiring supervision and observation by external clinicians in a range of healthcare settings. And since medical education cohorts can be large, with students working and studying across different organisations and environments, it's clear that there are very real challenges in the delivery and management of clinical learning and assessment at scale.

In an attempt to address the challenges of how best to support authentic learning in medical education, portfolio-based learning approaches, such as those supported by PebblePad, have long been employed by medical educators as a means of blending personal development and reflective practice. This practice has evolved to include the use of structured, task-orientated portfolios that provide opportunities for students to demonstrate – and evidence - real-world learning. When you consider that successful medical graduates need to demonstrate a wide range of aptitudes, attitudes and abilities which display their capacity to make use of what they know in the real world, it’s not all that surprising that this approach is on the increase in medical schools across the globe.

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The PebblePad of today offers tools that extend far beyond its portfolio-building capability, providing an end-to-end Learning Journey Platform to help medical educators create scaffolded frameworks to support learning and development in any context, alongside a suite of tools to formatively assess and guide students along their journey.

 
 
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PEBBLEPAD FOR MEDICAL EDUCATION

PebblePad offers medical students a secure space to capture their own thoughts and highlight achievements throughout their studies, while at the same time helping medical school educators design and share structured content and activities which map to the learning outcomes of their curricula. Indeed, the PebblePad of today offers tools that extend far beyond its portfolio-building capability, providing an end-to-end Learning Journey Platform to help medical educators create scaffolded frameworks to support learning and development in any context, alongside a suite of tools to formatively assess and guide students along their journey. This journey not only encompasses a student's undergraduate experiences, but also the option to continue recording personal and professional development into their career with our free alumni accounts. 

Image shows an example of a Medical Education workbook in PebblePad
An example Medical Education workbook in Pebblepad
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The ability to encourage and support active, authentic learning - within and beyond the classroom has seen interest in PebblePad accelerate, with several new medical schools becoming customers in recent months, along with a significant increase in interest from the wider medical education community


 
 
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Medical schools partnering with PebblePad can also benefit from the development of customised, programme-specific templates which can be made available in the PebblePad app, PebblePocket. This supports the ability to capture and assess evidence in both online and offline environments, allowing real-time assessment within the workplace. This ability to encourage and support active, authentic learning - within and beyond the classroom has seen interest in PebblePad accelerate, with several new medical schools becoming customers in recent months, along with a significant increase in interest from the wider medical education community.

The innovative practice from our new medical school partners will result in more examples of good practice for us to share with the thriving PebblePad community. The future is looking incredibly positive. Indeed, we are very proud at PebblePad HQ that our experience and expertise in implementing PebblePad effectively within medical education will lead to enhancements and innovations to help prepare and support the next generation of medical professionals. 

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MORE RESOURCES

Our Medical Education Page is the place to go if you want to learn more about the platform, see examples of practice, and submit a demo request to see PebblePad doing its thing. Our PebblePad Medical Education Guide (which is available on our medical education page or below) is a free download and contains everything you need to know about our ethos, heritage, and platform capability. Plus it contains three terrific case studies (including an award-winning example).

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Download the Medical Education Guide
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Author

Paul joined the PebblePad team as an Implementation Specialist after clocking up more than two decades' experience in the Higher Education sector. Paul honed his craft in areas such as teacher training, year abroad placements and distance learning, before focussing his expertise and efforts on supporting the University of Liverpool's School of Medicine in his role as Director of Technology Enhanced Learning. These days, Paul can be found advising colleagues in the medical field on how they can use PebblePad to support and develop the next generation of doctors. Outside of work, Paul attempts to play more sport than his body can cope with, this despite his wife and daughter reminding him on a daily basis that he's better off sticking to what he knows best - technology and education.

 

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