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Jacey Greece, DSc, MPH Department of Community Health Sciences BU School of Public Health

Practice-Based Learning: Establishing Academic and Community Partnerships to Teach Students Valuable Skills. Jacey Greece, DSc, MPH Department of Community Health Sciences BU School of Public Health jabloom@bu.edu Boston University Instructional Innovation Conference March 7, 2014.

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Jacey Greece, DSc, MPH Department of Community Health Sciences BU School of Public Health

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  1. Practice-Based Learning: Establishing Academic and Community Partnerships to Teach Students Valuable Skills Jacey Greece, DSc, MPH Department of Community Health Sciences BU School of Public Health jabloom@bu.edu Boston University Instructional Innovation Conference March 7, 2014

  2. Outline • Innovation Overview • Current Use • Lessons Learned • Application to Other Courses • Questions

  3. Innovation Overview Practice-based teaching to link students to practical problems

  4. Background • Course: SB806 Communication Strategies for Public Health • Old Way: Used hypothetical situations to teach course competencies • New Way: Uses collaborations with local public health agency to accomplish practice-based learning

  5. School/University • Reputational capital • Institutional collaboration • Civic responsibility • Potential funding streams Alumni Alumni Enhanced learning experience • Opportunities: • Job • Volunteer • Practicum Practice-Based Learning • Collaborations: • New • Continuing Alumni

  6. Current Use

  7. Process of Collaboration

  8. Course Requirements • Deliverables, developed in groups of 3-4 students • Problem statement with identified behavior/environmental change • Literature review based on social ecological model • Intervention proposal to address change • Communication plan to support the intervention • Ongoing consultations with client • Group work assessments • Presentation to client

  9. Skill-Building Activities

  10. Lessons Learned

  11. Lessons Learned • Setting clear expectations for deliverables • Reducing burden on collaborating agency • Balancing group work time in class and outside of class • Creating mechanisms to evaluate quality of deliverables for class and agency • Managing the number of projects and finding a liaison for each type of project

  12. Ongoing Challenges • Time intensive for students, faculty, and collaborating agency • Scheduling in-class time for agency consultations • Scheduling interviews and focus groups, as needed • Managing the communication between agency and students • Timing of identifying problem statements before start of semester • Group dynamics and emphasis on group work • Balancing time for technical skills with time for professional skills/situations that arise

  13. Benefits • “Working with the BPHC was an excellent way to learn the material. It gave students practice working with an organization and it was nice to know all your hard work was for something.” • “Getting to consult with a local public health agency to develop an intervention that they may actually use to inform their program development. Working in teams to create products you are really proud of.” • “This course, by far, gave me the most hands-on learning experience that I've had at BUSPH. We worked, developing an intervention, for a real client. This made the stakes higher and forced us to produce high quality work, which means we now have a product we can be really proud of. I think more SPH courses should be this practical and hands-on.”

  14. Benefits • School/University • Reputational capital • Institutional collaboration • Civic responsibility • Potential funding streams Alumni Alumni Enhanced learning experience • Opportunities: • Job • Volunteer • Practicum Practice-Based Learning • Collaborations: • New • Continuing Alumni

  15. Application to Other Courses

  16. Application to Other Courses • Collaborations benefit all stakeholders • Projects can be identified in a variety of disciplines • Determine the target area to impact • Identify potential collaborators • Identify projects that would benefit collaborators and allow students to learn technical skills • Establish agreement on deliverables students will produce • Ongoing communication throughout semester • Has potential to impact local, national, and international areas

  17. Conclusions • Practice-based teaching has multiple benefits for students, faculty, collaborators, and the school • It can be time intensive to foster the collaborations and engage the students this way during the semester • Based on student feedback and informal agency feedback, the benefits outweigh the costs

  18. QUESTIONS?

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