Virtual Practice Environment
Greg Duncan & Chris Barnes
Monash University
The Victorian College of Pharmacy, Monash University is a ‘one-faculty’ campus of around 1200 students in Parkville, Melbourne. The biggest undergraduate program is the four year Bachelor of Pharmacy. The campus is undergoing a program of rejuvenation, including the construction of a new building and renovation of teaching and research facilities.
Monash, like many schools of pharmacy, until recently taught aspects of professional practice in a model pharmacy space. The model pharmacy has now been demolished to make way for two new ‘Virtual Practice Environment (VPE)’ spaces. Unlike the model pharmacy, which was a static environment displaying a fixed traditional environment for community pharmacy services, the VPE provides a dynamic, flexible and adaptable space that can be configured to create a sense of immersion for students in a variety of healthcare and practice settings. This facilitates some familiarity with the structure and processes they will experience in practical placements throughout the course, but in an environment that is safe and supervised in a carefully guided educational framework. These experiences are not designed to replace any first hand practical experiences students will have during the course, but better prepare students with a degree of familiarity of otherwise unfamiliar environments and processes. The “virtual” nature of the environment will be complemented by relevant props and resources such as specific medicines for the class, references, Self-care Cards, etc, provided to enhance the experience.
Each room contains three conjoined screens, to create an area 10m wide by 3m high, for projecting hi-resolution images generating a sense of immersion for students where they can interact with patients, other health professionals, and any other relevant people both face-to-face and through technologies such as video conferencing, online software and avatars and CGI content. The projected images not only represent the current range of practice settings, such as a community pharmacy, a hospital ward, a rural pharmacy depot, a remote community health service setting, pharmaceutical industry settings, etc, but the potential exists for development and representation of any setting. The spaces allow students to reflect on the impact of the setting on their learning experience. Reflective exercises provide a fundamental reinforcement of the educational process and allow feedback not only to students but to staff for continuous quality improvement of the learning experience. By their nature the VPEs also have inherent capacity to keep pace with changes in professional practice, and the evolution of physical environments without the need for costly physical redevelopment.
The VPE spaces cater for a range of small group (20-25 students) teaching and learning activities.
The project plan involves an evaluation component in partnership with the Monash Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT). A comprehensive evaluation process will commence at the end of first semester 2008 and will provide valuable feedback for future stages of development.
Colloquium PowerPoint Presentation