Anthony Seto

Intro to Clinical Practice Course Chair, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada

Self-recorded interview July 2020

Q Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about what you do.

AS I am the course chair for Intro to Clinical Practice, a course at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. The course is intended to train second-year medical students in the foundational knowledge and skills they need to help them succeed in their clinical rotations and future clinical practice.

Q What is the biggest challenge you experienced when moving to remote teaching?

AS For me, it was the preparation time. Prep time includes brainstorming; designing and piloting; recording and editing; and recruiting and training. Brainstorming includes thinking about how to transform interactive sessions that are typically held in-person into an online interactive session. I ask myself:

• What type of mechanism can I use that will help recreate the type of feel that students would have in the regular in person learning environment?
• How can I connect that offline feel to the online experience?

Often, the solution is a video. With videos, I can get creative and consider my lectures as show productions. Another mechanism for achieving interactive learning is Google Forms, where learners can type in answers and get instantaneous feedback. Through Google Forms, I can create “games with aims.” Finally, before launching into the design and creation aspects of my lessons, I connect with other educators and learners to pitch my ideas.

The next preparatory task is the actual design and piloting of the online interactive sessions. I try to think of ways to design online delivery mechanisms that I myself would enjoy as a learner. I then run it by many, many people to get feedback, and continually revise the design after multiple pilots with different learner levels.

Next is recording and editing the lectures. I didn’t realize how picky I was with recording and editing until I started doing online teaching. I’m now able to edit out all the “uhs,” “ums,” and pauses that I and my colleagues would put in. By stripping away all of these verbal distractions, I feel that learners are able to hear the messages more clearly.

Another element of online teaching preparation requires the recruitment and training of facilitators. When we moved to remote teaching, I had to take additional time to create written manuals for facilitators to review, as well as schedule online Zoom sessions to train facilitators in the online platform that we were going to use to deliver our lessons. Often, the facilitators would identify technological glitches or have additional insights that could help improve the quality of online delivery.

Q What are the opportunities created by digital education?

AS One of them, for me, would be a push toward creativity and innovation. Digital education has really pushed me to think of creative ways in which I can still connect and engage with my learners, but through digital means. Another opportunity that I think is great in digital education is the ability and drive to connect with other educators and experts outside of your hometown. When we’re hosting in-person lectures, workshops, and activities, I feel we often recruit local teachers and expertise. But with digital education, we’re able to connect with anyone around the world. For example, I’ve connected with out-of-town instructors and learners to help me create and give feedback to my course content. Another opportunity presented by digital education is that it helps keep messages clear and succinct. The traditional university lecture is often one hour long. With digital education, lectures and sessions can be edited to take less time. I can literally cut out all of the extraneous information so that we can connect learners to the key pieces of information to minimize their cognitive strain.

Q What is your most-used software or tool?

AS I use a lot of different varieties of software and tools for online teaching. For example, I use Zoom in combination with Google Forms. I use my cell phone to film videos. I use Final Cut Pro as my video editing software, and I use PowerPoint for slides. Using Zoom in combination with Google Forms has allowed me to host and facilitate interactive sessions. I’ve used this in online simulations and even in online escape games for teamwork skills training.

How it works for teamwork skills training is that I have two sets of Google Forms. One is called Side A and the other is called Side B. Students are placed in either Side A or Side B, and they are not allowed to look at each other’s forms. They have to communicate what they see on screen to help solve the other side’s corresponding puzzles. It requires a lot of communication, collaboration, and teamwork to be able to go through all the puzzles that they are presented with.

In terms of cell phones for filming, I have pretty much transitioned to using my cell phone to film all my videos. I feel that it’s easy to navigate angles, to upload clips to your computer, and to delete files if you do not need them anymore.

Using Final Cut Pro, I edit my videos and create course trailers to connect learners and instructors before the course starts and to get them to engage with each other. I feel that course trailers paint the mood and flavour of the overall course, and then throughout the course I maintain the same energy through the course material and ways of facilitation.

Although I do use PowerPoint to create slides for my lectures, I also use PowerPoint to send e-mails. I call them my video e-mails. Rather than sending a black and white written e-mail to the students at the beginning of the course, I like to create a video PowerPoint message. I simply use a single-slide PowerPoint presentation, and then I do a voiceover to talk about its contents, and that becomes the video e-mail that I send out to the students before the course.

Q What is your favourite resource for teaching online?

AS My favourite resource for teaching online is using videos. This is because it offers a lot of flexibility. I can control the information delivered, the duration of the session, and the tone of the session. For example, some of my sessions may be a bit more formal, while others are a bit sillier, including a game show style. And mistakes can be removed. I also like videos because they evoke emotion. Emotional responses help memories form. So, facilitation through videos, I think, may connect with learners more.

Q What do you expect higher education to look like in ten years’ time?

AS In ten years, I think more online education will occur. What resonates with me for online learning is that it’s convenient, and it allows people to learn at their own pace. I myself recently signed up for some online DJing and movie-making courses to help me improve my own practice in these skills. I would also say that there will be more opportunities for collaboration and facilitation by experts from out of town, since you can do that online. We can’t fly people here and there all the time. And finally, I think the traditional one-hour lecture may be dissolved. We can move to a less-is-more approach, literally by chopping down and editing down the sessions to just the key messages so that students can have more time to do active hands-on practice and study at their own pace, and we can create more opportunities and time for interaction and connection.

Reflection

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked the necessity of online learning and blended learning options. I’ve seen lots of organizations and companies that teach life support courses transition into offering their curriculum in a blended format, where students learn cognitive knowledge online first and then come into the classroom to practice and demonstrate hands-on skills.

For my own future medical education courses, I think this is how I will be approaching the design of my curriculum. I’ll have cognitive knowledge pre-recorded into on-demand podcasts and then deliver in-person sessions that focus on hands-on practice, with opportunities to reflect and debrief. The pandemic has really jumpstarted blended learning. Now, I can re-direct my focus and energy toward crafting solid in-person educational experiences. I don’t have to worry about rehearsing my lectures to deliver them live, as they can all be pre-recorded.

Most people would consider blended learning to mean reviewing online preparatory material and then attending an offline, in-person class. I’d like to put out a challenge to educators to consider adopting a blended model within electronic materials, as well as within in-person sessions. For example, let’s think about how we can blend different items into our online podcasts to vary the pace—blend in pop quizzes, and blend in something unexpected like a random surprise (e.g., a musical number, a cameo, etc.) to keep viewers engaged and to offer intermittent mental breaks. As for blending during in-person sessions, one consideration is blending in videos, games, skits, and other surprises to maintain audience interest and engagement.

About

Anthony Seto is a clinical assistant professor and course chair for Intro to Clinical Practice. In this medical school course, escape games, simulations, and exciting audiovisual experiences are the norm.

Anthony has experience in creating and facilitating various online educational experiences, including medical simulations, an escape game for teamwork skills training, an oral clinical case presentation workshop, and a faculty development workshop on “gamification and education games.”

Outside of medical education, he enjoys participating in 48-hour movie challenges, learning how to DJ, and working at electronic dance music festivals as part of the medical team. Clinically, he practices as an urgent care and rural emergency physician.