Blogging in the ePortfolio environment to

enhance reflective practice: a service

evaluation of the trainee Operating

Department Practitioners’ experience

Barbara A Nicolls, Shane Roadnight & James Ellis

1. To evaluate the effectiveness of blogging in promoting

reflection and developing reflective ODPs

2. To inform curriculum development for managing the blog

task

Barbara A Nicolls, Shane Roadnight & James Ellis

Aim of the study

What is an ODP?

A registered

professional with

a skills set

specifically

tailored to the

operating theatre

Operating

Department

Practitioner

Training to be an ODP

• 2-year Diploma in HE

• 32 weeks per year in practice

• 14 weeks per year at university

• Varied regime throughout:

Assignments

OSCE

Exams

Practice assessment documents

• Upon completion; join the professional register held by the Health and Care

Professions Council

• Expectation of registration is continued professional development.

ePortfolio – student

owned, institution

independent

• ePortfolio embedded in the curriculum

Aspects of assessments are submitted to ePortfolio

Reflections on practice experiences

• Life long learning

• The ePortfolio is ‘owned’ by the student not the university

comprising 8 individuals

- with a common interest in health care (peri operative

care) (Wenger et al. 2002)

- with sustained mutual engagement in peri operative care over

the term of the course, shared purpose of developing into

reflective professionals & lifelong learners, common practice

(Hara et al. 2009, Lave & Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998)

therefore, consider group as CoP?

Cohort 2011

Reflective writing : Learning to write http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/new-to-teaching/STEM-

resources/teaching-reflective-writing

Operating Department Practice Programme Learning Outcomes

Year

2

Sem

2

Level

5

CL 503

Specialising in Perioperative Care

Clinical Practice in Specialist

Anaesthetics, Surgery

CL 504

Developing Leadership Qualities

in the Perioperative Care

Environment Clinical Practice in

Specialist Anaesthetics, Surgery

ePortfolio presentation with

achievement of course

learning outcomes

Year

2

Sem

1

Level

5

CL 501

Advancing Perioperative Practice

Clinical Practice in Complex

Anaesthetics, Surgery

CL 502

Applied Anatomy and Physiology

Clinical Practice in Complex

Anaesthetics, Surgery

ePortfolio progression

Year

1

Sem

2

Level

4

CL 403

Developing Perioperative Practice

Clinical Practice in Emergency

Anaesthetics, Surgery

CL 404

Anatomy & Physiology

Clinical Practice in Emergency

Anaesthetics, Surgery

ePortfolio confidence building,

making connections,

reflection, self assessment

Summary of learning in Y1

Year

1

Sem

1

Level

4

CL 401

Fundamentals of

Perioperative Practice

Clinical Practice in

Anaesthetics, Surgery

CL 402

Principles & Practice of

Anaesthetics & Surgery

Clinical Practice in Anaesthetics,

Surgery

ePortfolio induction,

familiarization, exploration,

collection, selection of

evidence

Learning to write: Year 1 Level 4

• Use of Reflection page in Google Sites ePortfolio which provides

a discursive space for reflecting on peri operative care

• Structured employing reflective models to integrate theory with

experience (Boyd & Fales 1983, Boud et al 1985, Schon 1987)

• a form of ‘academic’ reflection - involving a conscious and state

purpose for the reflection with an outcome specified in terms of

learning, action or clarification (Moon 2004)

• Scaffolding during transition to professionalism _ learning to write

reflectively and demonstrate growth

Barbara nicolls

Learning to write: Year 1 Level 4

The process of Reflecting in the ePortfolio comprises of:

1. Identifying and describing an ODP placement based experience

2. Analysing it using a conceptual framework

3. Uncovering assumptions

4. Conveying future action by articulating authentic professional growth

Provides appropriate opportunities for reflection to the trainees who are

attempting to absorb knowledge at their initial stage of learning to be

ODPs and to bring newly learned knowledge to the practice area.

Barbara nicolls

Transition in to Year 2 Level 5

• year 2 of the ODP programme

ePortfolio continues to grow

• Students are encouraged to take responsibility for their

own learning

• Reflections on clinical practice & self development

continue from the foundation built in the year 1

Life Long Learning

• Does this take the student far enough?

• Does it provide them with the expertise to support Life Long Learning &

CPD?

Blog

• To further support the concept of LLL/CPD we

have embedded a blog in to the assessment

regime

• The aim?

• To maintain

Growth

Self- motivated

development

Development of peer group

Why did we choose a Blog?

• Different tool for reflective development

• Lends itself to independent development of self & others

• Creates a community of practice/team working

• Shares ideas, good practice

• Promotes self development & professional awareness

Experience

• Students each created a blog page in their individual ePortfolio

• Students required to create 3 entries on a topic of their choice related to

peri-operative care over a 2-week period and share them with a selected

group of peers

• Students required to post 3 responses to maintain a dialogue

• Blog assessment rubric distributed and explained to enable students to

understand how the task is assessed albeit formatively

• The blog assignment is self moderated

• Allowed to develop through student freedom

• Risks of misinformation identified

Writing to learn in the ePortfolio

environment: Findings

Data collection

• Formative assessment using the rubric

• Student perception survey using Google form

• Focus group interview – checking back/empowering participants

• Qualitative analysis of blog content

Findings from the Formative assessment using

the blog rubric

Agree/

completely

agree %

Neutral % Disagree

/completely

disagree %

I enjoy writing reflections on the blog 3 (37.5%) 2 ( 25%) 3 (37.5%)

I enjoy reading my peers’ blog posts

4 (50%) 3 (37.5%) 1 (12.5%)

I enjoy responding to my peers’ blog posts

3 (37.5%) 3 (37.5%) 2 (25%)

Blogging experience:

a. become more thoughtful and mindful of my work 4 (50%) 1 (12.5%) 3 (37.5%)

b. become more aware of my learning needs 4 (50%) 2 (25%) 2 (25%)

c. learning from & with peers is fun 5 (62.5%) 1 (12.5%) 2 (25%)

d. continue this experience as a professional 1 (12.5%) 5 (62.5%) 1 (12.5%)

e. time consuming 2 (25%) 4 (50%) 2 (25%)

f. Keeping in touch with peers 24/7 on various placements 7 (87.5%) 0 1 (12.5%)

Student perception responses

(N=8)

Focus group interview

responses

What did you like about blogging?

What did you dislike about blogging?

Focus group interview

responses - like

• social connection with peers in geographically

diverse placements

• sharing and comparing experiences on placements

• blogging broadens the understanding of peri operative care

information, practices through knowledge base of a collective

whole (e.g. hyperlinks to other sources)

• teach and learn at the same time while engaging with reflective

practice (Hibbert 2008)

• similar to using facebook for information seeking and sharing

Focus group interview

responses (dislikes)

• difficulty of sharing the Blog page in their ePortfolio

with peers – IT issue

• suggested group size – small to enable co-construction of

knowledge

• another prescribed assignment blogging should be continuous

without time limitations –

• clear guidelines on “how to blog on the course”

• need “ a guide on the side” to prevent being misinformed

• lack of time for learning effectiveness

• Social constructivist learning through online CoPs

(collaboration, )

Small cohort – assessment process manageable for course

team

Blog task reinforced need for reflection as part of experiential

learning cycle – reflective practitioner

initial step to independent learning – could lead to lifelong

learning

Positive outcomes

• Timing of blog task to develop competency in blogging and

in reflective writing and practice

use of a blog platform e.g. Google Blogger to benefit from sharing

blog posts, archiving, and accessibility

Student Blog facilitators – training, clear guidelines to support them

in the blogging environment to optimize learning outcomes

group size

find time to analyse blog posts to ascertain the effectiveness of

blogging

Now what?

Suggestions ?