Abstracts 2010
Table of contents
PATHOLOGY (M. Fiche - FBM)
The aim of this project is to design six clinical cases on a multimedia medium for use in learning Pathology as part of the M1.2 module (Master 1, Child and Adolescent Medicine) at the School of Medicine. This project is part of the development of pathology teaching at the FBM, which has included the use of the Micropolis room since 2004. In Micropolis, students work in groups of six, observing macroscopic specimens and pathological tissue sections, in the context of clinical cases presented via a PC (the room has twenty tables, each equipped with a microscope, two linked tecircles, and a PC).
This is the pilot phase of a larger project. The six cases of gynaecological pathology are intended to be the first of the fifty cases that will form the basis of the pathology programme in the undergraduate medical curriculum. The aim is to design a teaching resource that facilitates learning and instruction and contributes to the coherence and visibility of integrated teaching in around ten multidisciplinary modules. The cases will be used in class, during the pre-graduate courses scheduled in the Micropolis room. They will also be accessible from the hospital ward during placements, and from the library or at home, particularly during exam preparation.
In this pilot phase, we want to pay particular attention to the didactic quality of these cases. The integration of knowledge of fundamental pathology on the one hand and organ pathology on the other, in a relevant clinical context is at the heart of this educational project. The involvement of teachers with complementary skills is intended to encourage this integration. The evaluation of these first six cases will enable us to offer future designers of additional cases a model, as well as proposals and recommendations.
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A training programme in clinical teaching methods for heads of clinics in the CHUV internal medicine department (M. Monti & D. Gachoud - FBM)
Learning in a clinical setting is at the heart of medical education. The clinical environment provides an opportunity to acquire essential medical skills, such as taking anamnesia, physical examination, clinical reasoning, empathy and professionalism. Above all, the clinical environment offers the opportunity to integrate these different skills into the management of real cases.
Alongside senior doctors, heads of clinics play a key role in clinical teaching, supervising medical students during bedside teaching modules, block courses or elective year placements.
Quality clinical teaching does not rely solely on the experience and medical knowledge of the trainers: it also requires pedagogical knowledge. The aim of this project is to provide training in medical pedagogy for heads of medical clinics. It responds to a real need, since heads of clinics currently only receive training in clinical teaching methods. In addition, clinical leaders have to adapt to new teaching formats and tools. For example, the medicine block course has recently seen the introduction of new teaching methods, and new assessment techniques will be introduced shortly. The programme consists of a series of workshops covering the main themes of teaching in a clinical setting. The workshops are a recognised method in teacher training, also known as staff / faculty development.
The programme will be developed in close collaboration with the Pedagogy Unit (UP) and may tie in with a UP project supported by the IFP in 2009: A support website for the Faculty of Biology and Medicine and the University of Lausanne.
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Interactive learning tools for substance risk assessment (N. Chèvre - FGSE)
Recent scientific studies have shown that there are several thousand substances in the environment. In this context, substance risk assessment tools are essential for identifying the most problematic compounds.
The presentation of risk assessment tools is an important part of the toxicology course. However, to really understand these methods, they need to be practised on a few specific cases. This allows a better understanding of the processes (data acquisition, critical evaluation of data, etc.) involved in this evaluation.
With this in mind, the aim of this project is to set up a learning environment enabling better development of skills in the field of substance risk assessment.
The project comprises several parts: (a) drawing up a teaching scenario, (b) producing videos explaining risk assessment for a few groups of substances, (c) setting up a database of case studies from which the groups of students will be able to choose, and (d) creating a database of case studies from which the groups of students will be able to choose; (c) the creation of a database of case studies from which groups of students will choose a problem to study, and (d) the creation of an online platform on which the videos and case database will be placed and where students will be able to present their risk assessment work.
More specifically for points (b) and (d) the aims are: (b) to produce short five- to ten-minute video sequences on different groups of substances, deepening knowledge of the subject and presenting some key examples. We plan to make six videos on POPs, pesticides, biocides, drugs and hormones, cosmetics and surfactants. Students will be able to use these sequences to supplement their knowledge. They can also be disseminated to a wider audience. (d) the creation of a website providing information on the risks of substances. Each group of students will present a summary of the risk of a specific substance. From year to year, the site will be expanded and completed. Depending on the quality of the exhibits, some of them could be used to disseminate information to the general public.
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Learning to communicate skills: an integrated use of the online portfolio (M. Burger - Humanities)
The project consists of offering students the opportunity to create a personalised portfolio available online on an IT platform. The «portfolio» has two types of purpose:
a) its purpose is to enable the student to make an inventory of all the academic and pedagogical documents used in the context of teaching, as well as all the forms of reflection and communication that have led to the creation of a portfolio. This includes exchanges between students, or between the student and the teacher in charge. In this respect, the portfolio acts as a sort of exhibition space for the student's own activities: it makes it possible to preserve traces, by étapes, of the students individual participation in a lesson, as well as the students wider relationships with the group of students and teachers in charge.
b) in view of what has been said above about academic achievements, the portfolio is also intended to enable biographical documents to be organised and prepared. In this way, the portfolio can be seen as a kind of «place» where the student's activities are displayed, not for themselves but for others: A sort of Curriculum Vitae, designed to help raise the profile of the student's skills, the online portfolio presents the student's skills and knowledge in a variety of ways; online portfolio also provides a post-academic anchor, for example, the aim of doctoral research or a desired position on the job market.
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Le champ intellectuel et ses réseaux: Le cas des revues culturelles en Suisse (XIXe - XXe siècles) (F. Vallotton - Lettres)
This project, carried out in partnership with the University of Fribourg and Professors Alain Clavien and Claude Hauser, has a dual educational and scientific objective. By means of a web platform, the aim is to offer students the opportunity to participate in a form of work in progress, with the aim of producing a scientific work on the subject. Online dictionary of Swiss cultural journals ». A first version of this dictionary, produced under the aegis of the Groupe de recherche en histoire intellectuelle contemporaine (GRHIC), can be consulted by clicking on the link above. More generally, this course is designed to help students learn the basic skills required for historical work: working in archives, identifying key players and central themes, learning a system for taking notes and organising information, putting things into perspective by using secondary literature, writing analytical texts.
The pedagogical side will consist of a Master's seminar focusing on the problem of cultural journals in Switzerland. After an introduction to the topic and the computer platform used, each student or group of students will choose the title of the journal they wish to work on from a list proposed by the lecturers. The first step is to fill in a detailed form for each magazine so that they can be put together in a network. This is a collective exercise, insofar as each sheet is compiled primarily by one group, and can be completed by other groups as correspondences or cross-fertilisations arise. The exchange of information is made possible by the collaborative platform that is to be set up. In the second stage, taking into account the information acquired through networking, each group will draw up a detailed description of its journal, in accordance with the restrictive model given on the website of the Online Dictionary of Swiss Cultural Journals. In the third stage, each entry is criticised and discussed in plenary session. The revised texts are then posted online in the part of the dictionary open to the public.
This active participation in the online dictionary is the lasting scientific achievement of the project, since the pedagogical and technical experience gained during this seminar can serve as a basis for other seminars of the same type, which will continue to enrich the dictionary.
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Greek by distance learning (C. Furrer - FTSR)
The aim of the project is to set up a Greek distance learning programme to support the traditional course. The latter would be given in the form of a practical introduction before the official start of university courses, and teaching would continue with the help of the distance course with the support of the Moodle programme between the beginning and the end of the course;This would be supported by the Moodle programme between the teacher and first-year students enrolled in the Faculties of Theology and Religious Studies, Arts or Social Sciences. It would consist of independent work based on an existing textbook and four video-conferences per semester, followed by interactive exchanges and dialogues between teachers and students.
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Filming rituals. Visual anthropology workshop (Master's level) (S. Mancini & F. Mobio - FTSR)
The "Traditions religieuses marginalisées et transversales" specialism focuses on the magico-religious forms of traditional European subcultures and extra-European civilisations, as well as on modern Western spiritual currents. Its aim is to study conceptions, institutions and practices not directly related to the major established religions. It therefore implies the adoption of a specific approach - in particular, for three reasons: 1) orality and the direct practice of marginalised knowledge and know-how; 2) the sensitive and non-verbal nature of expressive codes; 3) the risks associated with dereactive actions.
The use of a teaching method that makes use of the audiovisual tool amplifies the effectiveness of the transmission of content relating to; the methodological and methodological approach developed in this teaching whilst circumventing the difficulties mentioned above.
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