Implementation of collaborative strategies and multiple mentoring models to facilitate peer learning in clinical education

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to introduce new collaborative education models into clinical education in a Swiss hospital setting. It was intended to provide and enhance opportunities of peer assisted learning for physiotherapy students within their clinical placements and facilitate clinical educators to reflect on learning-theory oriented models and methods of the facilitation process of students. Relevance: Motivation to adopt different approaches for clinical education and facilitation of students´ learning has been triggered by several contextual circumstances. The transition of physiotherapy education from technical colleges to universities of applied sciences led to reflections on respective potential impacts for the clinical education setting. Second, an anticipated shortage of clinical educators, in addition to transitionally higher numbers of PT students raised concerns about scant resources for appropriate facilitation of students. Finally, the changing environment of service delivery in the hospital had to be considered. Furthermore an increasing number of papers from different fields have shown that peer assisted learning and peer collaboration are highly relevant for learning in clinical placements. Description: In the first phase, five clinical educators reviewed as a group, the literature about clinical education models (Lekkas et al. 2007; Strohschein et al. 2002) and peer assisted learning (Ladyshewsky 2000 & 2006). In a second phase a flexible multiple mentoring model alongside collaborative student sessions with and without support by clinical educators was piloted and adopted in. Feedback from the involved clinical educators led to some ongoing adjustments, and the development of a "tool box" containing a list of different questions, tasks, and instructions of case presentations and discussions. Evaluation: The newly implemented educational approaches were continuously evaluated by using a semi-structured debriefing interview with each student at the end of their clinical placement. Interview questions cover advantages and problems experienced with the collaborative settings as well as suggestions for improvement. Results led to further improvements of these introduced settings of a respective content analysis will be presented at the conference. Conclusions: In general, peer learning opportunities were highly appreciated by most students, although some challenging issues were identified, such as questions of group dynamics. However, feedbacks from students support the notion that such collaborative learning approaches are also suitable for students with different levels of studies and from different universities of applied sciences. Furthermore, the "tool box" developed is a helpful means to support variability within facilitation processes and to adjust to variations of group dynamics of students. Implications: The positive experiences from such a bottom-up and pragmatic approach for introducing innovative educational strategies within a single clinical education setting lead us to believe that such an approach could be considered by other institutions. Organizational and structural changes for clinical education in our institution proved to be a helpful and valuable means for further development of the involved clinical educators, such as moving from a more traditional and teacher-centred approach to a more student-centred one