Challenges faced by teachers of postgraduate health professions blended learning programs: a qualitative analysis.

INTRODUCTION: Blended learning, which integrates classroom face-to-face teaching with both asynchronous and synchronous online learning elements, has swiftly gained acceptance in educational environments. However, the implementation of blended learning presents challenges that impact all stakeholders, necessitating thoughtful consideration. Teachers play a central role in shaping the instructional experience among these stakeholders. To fully realize the potential of comprehensive blended learning, it is imperative to identify the challenges faced by these teachers and develop strategies that sensibly address and overcome them. METHODOLOGY: A qualitative exploratory study was conducted with twelve teachers involved in the postgraduate blended learning health professions program at Khyber Medical University, Peshawar in 2022. One-on-one semi-structured Interviews were conducted via WhatsApp/ZOOM, transcribed by Otter AI, coded on NVivo & analyzed using Braun/Clarke's Thematic Analysis. RESULTS: Three themes of challenges faced by teachers of postgraduate blended learning programs were constructed namely (1) Skills, such as (i) digital, (ii) instructional, and (iii) online class management, and (2) Administrative barriers in terms of (iv) resources (iv) training, and (3) Faculty resistance. CONCLUSION: This study provides profound insights into the daunting challenges that postgraduate blended learning program teachers encounter in terms of skills, administrative barriers, and faculty resistance. These findings offer a valuable opportunity for program directors to identify the critical requirements of these faculties in their pursuit of effective teaching and learning, ultimately transforming the landscape of blended education. This study emphasizes the need for ongoing faculty development and institutional support to address the identified challenges and improve the quality of postgraduate blended-learning programs.

"Smartphone as an educational tool" the perception of dental faculty members of all the dental colleges of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa - Pakistan.

BACKGROUND: With the increasing advancement in the field of information technology, it's about time we realize that our future will be shaped by this field. With more and more people using smartphones, we need to adapt them to the medical field. Already many advancements in medical field are done thanks to the advancement of computer science. But we need to implement this into our teaching and learning as well. Almost all students and faculty members use smartphones in one way or another if we can utilize the smartphone to enhance the learning opportunities for our medical students, it would greatly benefit them. But before the implementation, we need to find out if our faculty is willing to adopt this technology. The objective of this study is to find out what are the perceptions of dental faculty members about using a smartphone as a teaching tool. METHODOLOGY: A validated questionnaire was distributed among the faculty members of all the dental colleges of KPK. The questionnaire had 2 sections. First one contains information regarding the demographics. The second one had questions related to the faculty members' perception regarding using a smartphone as a teaching tool. RESULTS: The results of our study showed that the faculty (Mean 2.08) had positive perceptions regarding using a smartphone as a teaching tool. CONCLUSION: Most of the Dental Faculty members of KPK agree that smartphone can be used as a teaching tool, and it can have better outcomes if proper applications and teaching strategies are used.

How To Teach 'Listening For Learning' In A Clinical Context?

Active listening skills are an important factor in communication skill set. And for budding doctors they need to be incorporated in the undergraduate medical programs. Studies have shown that patients, prefer the doctors who can listen to them instead of just looking at their signs and symptoms. Listening is related to empathy when strictly talking from patient's perspective. Having better listening skills can also lead to less prescription errors and help the doctor to identify some missing points from the history that can help in the diagnosis. Listening skills can be taught in different ways. Role plays are a safe way to teach them however, while teaching them in a clinical setting; we need to approach it in a different way like bedside teaching, Chairside Dental OPD etc.