Medical College of Georgia student project
In the most ambitious project to date in Physiopedia, Eric Robertson (with the help of our featured contributor Tyler Shultz!) has directed his DPT students to create some great new pages as part of their recent spinal course. The students were allowed to select of spine topic of their choice and the assignment was very non-prescriptive in nature, allowing the students the opportunity to decide what content would best make their page. Many made their own videos and took their own pictures to upload which we are very impressed with! Once they got past the initial learning curve, the students really enjoyed making the content. One student posted on twitter that this “really was a neat way to learn.” I hope the pages they created will be a nice resource for many physios!
Take a look at he pages they created:
- Neck Pain Clinical Guidelines
- Sacroiliac Joint
- Cauda Equina Syndrome
- Straight Leg Raise Test
- Femoral Nerve Tension Test
- Spinal Stenosis
- Transverse Ligament Stress Test
- Gaenslen Test
- Spinal_Stabilization
- Prone Instability Test
- Spinal Manipulation
- Slump Test
- Degenerative Disc Disease
- Lumbur Radiculopathy
- Waddels Sign
- Hoover Test
- Spurlings Test
RCSI student project pages
The RCSI student module that has taken place in Physiopedia is now complete. The foundation year students created two new pages, Auscultation and Apley’s Test. They were assessed on their work following a final presentation and the project co-ordinator, Aileen Barrett, was very pleased with the outcome.
The first ever student module in Physiopedia has been a great success. From the feedback that we have received it seems that the students enjoyed the project as did the project co-ordinator. It has been a learning curve for all of us and I will certainly be using the experience to develop a more seamless experience for further educational projects in Physiopedia.
Educational questions answered
When presenting Physiopedia at higher education institutions I repeatedly get asked the same questions with respect to the purpose and usability of this online resource. With this post I hope to formally answer some of these questions and encourage more higher education institutions to take part in the creation of this professional resource.
What place does Physiopedia have in education?
There is a shift in education for institutions to become involved in e-learning somehow. Now I personally think that blended learning, a combination of distance and face-to-face learning, is the best approach and feel that in these times of recession Physiopedia can provide that opportunity for free. Institutions can organise and monitor group projects in Physiopedia or students may wish to work independently to enhance their own studies. Group projects within Physiopedia could include assignments such as creating or reviewing pages, debates such as literature reviews, lecture preparation and case studies. Overall it is an excellent activity for developing skills of reflection, critical assessment, and writing and ultimately it provides a great opportunity for students to get involved in the creation of this collaboratively created global resource for our profession. See the educators guide for more information…
How will the students benefit?
Apart from being involved in the creation of this globally collaborative website they will each have their own individual page within Physiopedia where they can produce a profile and portfolio of work. The work that they complete within Physiopedia will be credited to them and link back to their profile page. The more work that they complete within Physiopedia the greater their professional online presence will be.
How will our institution benefit?
Each institution that encourages their students to become involved in Physiopedia is acknowledged on the pages that their students have worked on and permanently featured on our acknowledgements page. It is also possible for each institution to create their own profile page to increase their online presence further and demonstrate their involvement in this international collaborative project.
What about IP?
We know that it is standard policy for institutions to ‘own’ the work that their students are assessed on throughout their education. However, I think I’m right in saying that most institutions do not own the work that students complete in preparation for assessed work. With this situation students could complete individual or a group project within Physiopedia and then be assessed on related presentations or written work. This has certainly been the case for the first module that was completed in Physiopedia by the RCSI students.
Who monitors the content?
We realise that some people are concerned about the value of the content that is written in Physiopedia, especially if students are involved in this creation process. However the whole idea of the project is that it is a collaborative effort by our profession to monitor and edit pages so that information is kept correct and up-to-date. Over time, with this approach, the resource will become more and more valuable as a reference resource (more on that in a moment!).
That having been said Physiopedia also has an international board of moderators who are experienced physiotherapists. At the moment this involves a small number of people monitoring large areas of the site but we anticipate that experienced physiotherapists will join us to monitor specific areas that are of particular interest to them. If you would like to be a part of this moderating team just let us know!
How valuable is Physiopedia as a reference?
Like Wikipedia Physiopedia is only as good as the content that has been created and although we expect a high level of evidence based content creation from our profession we do not expect students to use it as reference source. We anticipate that students may use Physiopedia like one might use Wikipedia, to find information on a particular topic that they are researching and use it as a place to direct them to other relevant resources and evidence. It is by no means a substitute for a thorough literature review.
I’m sure that I haven’t covered everything or answered everyone’s questions but hope that I may have instilled a bit more confidence in Physiopedia as a suitable e-learning tool for physiotherapy education. If you have any other concerns please do comment below and I will answer them here, alternatively you can contact me directly.
Physiopedia for Students
Tyler Shultz, a physical Therapy student from the Medical College of Georgia, has been using Physiopedia in a new and novel way. He has been using it to study for his orthopaedic classes and in doing so, not only has it been a valuable learning and reference tool for him, but he has also helped to develop this resource for therapists worldwide.
Tyler explains his experiences with Physiopedia by saying “I have been using Physiopedia as a platform to review my anatomy and foundational physical therapy knowledge (like with the GH and AC joint pages) as well as a place to post information about the special tests I have learned more recently in my ortho class (see Hawkins/Kennedy Test). I have quickly discovered that posting to Physiopedia has forced me to constantly review my notes from class, texts, and peer-reviewed articles for relevant information and data, and in doing so I am studying and more importantly, learning the information because I am reproducing, practicing, and constantly re-reading it. In addition, once the information I post to Physiopedia is live on the web, it is extremely easy and quick to reference during class or when I am studying (and I know it is correct!). I have found the wiki-based style of Physiopedia easy to learn and understand, which makes posting to Physiopedia worth the time and effort to do so. And because Physiopedia is evidence-based, it is forcing me to become more efficient (and effective) at finding evidence-based research studies and resources related to the topics I am learning about, which will be extremely beneficial for me in my future career as a physical therapist”.
We are very grateful to Tyler for his contributions and hope that in time many more physical and physio therapists will join us in the creation of this great resource. If there are any other students out there that would like to use Physiopedia, please mention where you are a student when registering for your account or you can contact me directly for further advice.
