1. Table 1. Student response themes and categories
Using MakerSpace Technology to Promote Innovation and Creativity in an Interprofessional Innovation Education (IPE) course
Patrice M. Ludwig, Assistant Professor of Biology, Erica J. Lewis, Assistant Professor of Nursing, and Jacquelyn K. Nagel, Assistant Professor of Engineering—all of James Madison University
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Introduction
Students also valued specifically the interprofessional nature of the teamwork. The theme, Learned to Work in Interprofessional Teams was characterized by general items such as learned about other professions and more specific items such as learned to overcome jargon barriers between different professions.
For this presentation we focus on ungraded oral reflections that students provided at course completion. We asked students “What did you value about what you learned in the class?” and prompted students during the ensuing discussion. Students were asked to opt-in to having these reflections analyzed for this research. Nineteen (86%) students consented to participate in the research. Transcriptions of the reflection question for consenting participants were de-identified and analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
Qualitative content analysis identifies themes in the student reflections. This method involves reducing participants’ comments to their smallest meaningful unit, coding these units, identifying categories for these codes, and then finally identifying themes from the categories. The three researchers used an iterative process until agreement was reached at each step to strengthen the trustworthiness of the findings.
Two emergent themes did not explicitly link to the course objectives. These are Saw the Course in Context of Past and Future Work, and Learned to be Creative.
A student comment illustrating the theme related to creativity is:
“….it true, creativity can be fostered, and that's a big thing I learned.”
Problems in healthcare are increasingly complex and wide in scope. The problems are large enough such that no single discipline, or even traditionally paired groups of disciplines, will be able to solve them; there will need to be novel configurations of interprofessional teams working together to develop creative solutions to these problems. Despite a clear need, professionals are ill prepared to work together in diverse teams. Additionally, the technology available to solve these problems advances as quickly as the problems themselves, and different professions approach the use of such technology in isolation. There is a need for new configurations of interprofessional education (IPE) that facilitates work with emerging technologies. Research is needed to identify related learning outcomes.
Table 1. Student response themes and categories
Theme (n = supportive meaningful units)
Category (n = supportive meaningful units)
Learned skills to work in a team (79)
Learned to effectively work as a team in general (13)
Learned how to work with differing perspectives (10)
Learned about personal strengths and weaknesses (9)
Importance of teamwork to success of projects (9)
Learned specific skills such as patience that made teamwork easier (9)
Appreciated teamwork (9)
Learned how to interact with others (7)
Unique team experience (6)
Learned to work with people with different skills (3)
Learned to allow time for teamwork (2)
Weaknesses can also be strengths (2)
Learned to work in interprofessional team (49)
Learned what knowledge and skills other professions have (17)
Valued interprofessional work (11)
Valued having multiple instructors (6)
Learned from other professionals (6)
The interprofessional team led to a richer process (4)
Learned to overcome jargon barriers between different professions (2)
Humbling to recognize the expertise of others (2)
Comfortable working in interprofessional teams before the class (1)
Valued growth that came from challenges of problem solving (36)
Uncomfortable growth (13)
Valued MakerSpace (6)
Learned about the health challenge (5)
Learned about technology (2)
Valued having a deliverable product (2)
Learned empathy for design (2)
3D printing (2)
Learned new skills (2)
Saw limitations of maker-space (1)
Limited technical communication (1)
Saw the course in context of past and the future work (35)
Linked class to other experiences (10)
Will be able to apply class to future work (10)
Enjoyed the class (5)
Learning was limited (4)
Strengthen prior knowledge (3)
Used prior knowledge to meet the challenge (1)
Hope to continue learning more about course content (1)
Learned to learn (1)
Learned about own profession (17)
Learned limitations of own profession (6)
Learned about own profession in general (3)
Gained confidence in professional knowledge (3)
Learned that I am more than just my chosen profession (3)
Learned to communicate professions role and knowledge (2)
Learned to be creative (16)
Increased creativity skills (7)
Creativity can be learned (2)
Valued innovative thinking (2)
Valued the complexity of the work (2)
Previously unaware about creative abilities (1)
Appreciated the structure to the creative work (1)
Benchmarking was useful (1)
Student centered approach to teaching and learning (14)
Course self-directed (5)
Class different than expected (4)
Student centered approach (2)
Valued being off campus for class (1)
Sense of urgency to work (1)
Information was valuable (1)
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that students working in novel configurations of interprofessional teams can learn teamwork skills, such as communication and allowing sufficient time for teamwork; along with the value of interprofessional work. These outcomes are attainable at the pre-professional level for nursing and health majors. The results imply these programs can achieve IPE despite the curricular limitations in these programs. Moreover, these findings are important to the engineering profession given that an essential competency is to work across disciplinary, cultural, political, and economic boundaries. Improving creativity was not an explicit course objective but emerged as an important theme and should be considered in future IPE courses.
We recommend that educators develop and test courses using novel configurations of interprofessional teams and emerging technologies. Constructs that should be measured are teamwork, interprofessional development, creativity, and problem-solving. Explicit learning outcome should be devoted to learning skills associated with teamwork in general, working in interdisciplinary teams, and creative problem solving.
Results
The narratives resulted in over 250 unique/coded meaningful units. Seven themes emerged from the 50 categories based on coded meaningful units (Table 1). The two themes with the most supporting evidence and emergent themes are discussed below. The two most supported themes link well to the course objectives.
An important theme is that students valued that they Learned Skills to Work as a Team. Categories important in this theme are learning to work with differing perspectives, the importance of teamwork to success or projects, and learning to rely on teammates.
One participant described the value of working with as a team as:
“... I also valued working with people that were of opposite strengths of myself …”
Figure 1. Students engaged in experiential learning activity in Interprofessional Innovations course Spring 15.
Methods
In spring 2015, the authors co-instructed an IPE course called Interprofessional Innovations. Students worked in interprofessional teams to develop a solution to a community health challenge using MakerSpace Technology. Eight students from engineering, and seven students each from pre-professional health and pre-nursing were enrolled (total n=22) (Figure 1). We aimed to describe emerging themes of student learning outcomes in interprofessional education.
Bibliography/Contact Information
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Funded by 4-VA, a consortium of 4 Virginia Public Universities