In my experience, the #meded community suffers (a lot) from a Not Invented Here bias, where research findings from outside the community are ignored. Or maybe they’re simply assumed not to exist. Or probably, there’s an acknowledgement of their existence but a belief that, because the research wasn’t done in the context of medical education, the findings can’t possibly transfer.
Because, you know, patients and stuff.
I saw a fair amount of work presented at AMEE today, which has been well-established in the digital and technology-enhanced LTA community for decades. I got the impression that there’s a sizable group of educators in the #meded community, who were forced to use technology in different ways (for them) during Covid, and figured that this whole online teaching thing was pretty novel.
And because #meded is special, the lessons learned about online education during the pandemic must be novel and interesting. But, for the most part, it really isn’t. Many of the ‘lessons’ learned during Covid are not especially useful for anyone familiar with online learning. Ever since we’ve had the internet, we’ve had scholars exploring how it could be used for learning and teaching. And before the internet, we had hundreds of years of distance education.
Over that time, we’ve developed robust frameworks, guided by learning theory, that support the use of technology for a wide range of learning and teaching. We really do know how to do this well, even if it’s difficult (because we’re humans, and humans make poor choices). We have bucketloads of high-quality research telling us how to use technology to teach, learn, and assess.
If only the #meded community would deign to look at it.
Caveat: Yes, I know that there are some in the #meded community who are doing great work with technology. I know that they’re familiar with Connectivism and all that jazz. This post is not about those few people.