Download Name: Jenny Lorimer School: School of Health and Emergency

Name: Jenny Lorimer
School: School of Health and Emergency Professions
Subject: Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology
Programme/module:
BSc (Hons.) Diagnostic Radiography and Imaging
Anatomy, Physiology. Pathology and Image Appearances (Level 5)
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1) How did you use EVS in your teaching?
An electronic voting system (EVS) was used to enable conditional branching at key
decision-making points during a series of imaging scenarios, where a conditional
branch (in computer programming) is an instruction that directs the computer to another part of the program based on the results of a compare. In practice conditional
branching refers to the application of the EVS to allow the student group to control
the order of Power-Point™ slides in a presentation, based on the responses
received to posed questions.
2) Why did you use EVS in this context?
EVS was used to provide immediate, relevant feedback to students in a nonthreatening manner while enhancing the student experience in a large cohort that is
diverse both in terms of age and ethnicity. A project was used to investigate the
feasibility and suitability of embedding conditional branching as an integral teaching
tool for a large group throughout an undergraduate module.
3) The EVS answers allow the lecturer immediate feedback both on areas where
understanding is not clear, and where there are misconceptions. This immediate
feedback on teaching is extremely valuable. Having this feedback while still in the
classroom allows difficulties to be addressed immediately. This allows the activity
to build on correct understanding. It was recognized that we all learn from
mistakes and the conditional branching allowed the lecturer to exploit this and
allow students to see the consequences of errors in patient management, without
causing actual harm.
4) What do you think were the benefits of your application of EVS for your students?
One of strengths of conditional branching was found to be the ability to link the
imaging scenarios closely to clinical practice. Relevant images were included at key
decision making points and subsequent explanations were described to the group.
Students were able to experience the effect of how an inappropriate decision could
have a variety of different adverse outcomes for a patient.
University of Hertfordshire/Learning and Teaching Institute/EVS case study template/April 2012
During the teaching, the focus of the conditional branching was as a tool for helping
the students to understand topics as a whole and as an opportunity to develop their
critical thinking and decision making skills. Prior to each conditional branching
session the students had had a number of teaching sessions on a given topic area.
It was clear that throughout the teaching the conditional branching was a successful
method of increasing student engagement and classroom interactivity, despite the
large size of the group. Although students had individual handsets there was
continued evidence of student collaboration and social learning as students
discussed options with small groups of their peers prior to voting.
5) Did you experience any drawbacks or problems with using EVS that may prompt
you to modify or develop the use outlined above?
The lack of right or wrong answers in the clinical scenarios is initially alien compared
to the more common use of EVS and therefore required a level of reassurance. The
main challenge was the length of time that the preparation of the scenarios took, a
key factor being the need to reduce the complexity of real life cases into a simplified
format that could be used and understood more easily as teaching examples.
University of Hertfordshire/Learning and Teaching Institute/EVS case study template/April 2012