Master of Clinical Education

Taught in tandem with Creating a Clinical Learning Environment, this subject provides a firm foundation for further studies in the education of health professionals. The basics of teaching and learning theory are presented with clear linkages to the clinical workplace to ensure immediate relevance and applicability. This subject orients participants to the fundamental principles and practices of education relevant across healthcare professions, disciplines, and settings.

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Taught in tandem with Foundations in Clinical Education, this subject provides participants with a foundation in the principles and practices of vocational supervision that are unique to the health professions. Creating a Clinical Learning Environment takes the theories and principles studied in the co-requisite subject and applies them to clinically-qualified learners who are further developing their career as a health professional. A diverse range of learning activities will explore the practical application of education and training principles in the clinical environment.

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One of the key roles of the clinical teacher is to reliably assess their learners’ knowledge, skills and performance to decide whether they have achieved competence in the area of instruction. This is not just important for appropriate academic achievement and progression, but to ensure that learners are being appropriately certified as safe and competent health professionals. This subject introduces participants to the current and emerging theories underpinning valid and reliable assessment of health professional learners and provides opportunities to develop, implement and critique different assessment formats. This subject equips participants to improve assessment of clinical learners in their own health professions education setting.

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This subject provides an introduction to research and evaluation in health professions education. The subject distinguishes between the purpose and approaches of research, evaluation, and the scholarship of teaching, as well as showing their connectedness. The research-focused component of the subject introduces principles and approaches to health professions education research and engages learners with key research domains through analysis and application of the literature and research principles. The evaluation component considers the purposes for undertaking evaluation in a health professions education context, provides a focus on evaluation of clinical teaching, and introduces methodological approaches utilised in the evaluation of teaching.

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Pedagogy into Practice is designed to deepen the basic educational theories encountered in the first year of study and to enhance participants’ ability to develop and implement student centred curriculum content. It provides and develops a general conceptual framework for understanding learning and teaching specific to clinical contexts. It examines how learning can be enhanced from a range of theoretical and evidence-based perspectives. There will be a strong emphasis on the experiential learning afforded by the clinical learning environment.

Participants will analyse student characteristics to identify learning and teaching strategies that build on individual students’ prior experiences and learning. Participants will investigate the strategic role of the teacher in effective student learning, planning for learning, group teaching, developing a culture of learning and building relationships. Critical reflection, regularly recorded, is a central paradigm for student self-evaluation and professional learning. This subject requires a self-directed approach to learning on the part of the participants.

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Assessment Design and Quality Assurance considers the key elements of assessment quality assurance and assessment design in health professions education. This subject builds on the foundational content of “Assessing Clinical Learners” and extends that knowledge by exploring best practice methods of measuring and ensuring quality of assessments, as well as key considerations in the design and implementation of assessment across entire subjects and courses. The subject draws on experience across the health professions to equip participants to improve assessment quality, and consider assessment design, within their own unique context.

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Clinical simulation involves a range of immersive techniques that replace or amplify real clinical experiences with interactive, guided ones to achieve enhanced educational outcomes with safety for both patient and learner. This subject examines the educational underpinnings of effective clinical simulation.

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Using the best available evidence to ensure that educational programs for healthcare professionals are reliable, appropriate and effective is crucial to providing a quality learning experience. This subject assists participants to critically analyse the research underpinning their clinical teaching and examines research approaches best suited to undertaking clinical education research.

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Clinical Education Modules is designed to provide students with an opportunity to explore an area of interest in greater depth while remaining within the structure of the Graduate Diploma program. The aim of the modules is to allow participants to expand knowledge within a specialised area of interest, while maintaining broad application to the unique requirements of teachers working in health professional contexts.

Participants will be asked to nominate to attend four modules from a range of module topics offered each year. They need only be assessed in two of the nominated modules. The topics offered will vary and are presented to participants at the start of the year based on currency, interest, and availability. Only those modules attracting sufficient preferences will be delivered each year. Examples of module topics to be offered include:

• Comparative Clinical Education
• Gender & Culture in Clinical Education
• Promoting Professionalism
• Interprofessional Education
• Teaching Clinical Reasoning
• Clinical Teaching with the Humanities
• other topics as appropriate.

Participants enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Clinical Education will be provided with a description of each module and will be surveyed before the semester starts in order to nominate their four modules for attendance. The two assessable modules may be nominated after the end of the teaching period.

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This subject provides practical support and guidance for participants preparing to undertake their research project in the second semester. It builds on the theoretical research paradigms and methods introduced in the graduate diploma research subject by supporting clinicians to develop and define a research question, and appropriate research design and methods. Recognising that clinicians have many competing demands on their time, the seminar days are workshops that will allow participants to develop important resources such as their clarified research question, literature search strategy, project design and ethics application.

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The field of clinical education is rapidly developing in order to meet Australia’s health workforce needs. The content of this subject addresses the multiple roles of health education leaders in this environment; to maintain and further develop evidence-based quality in education delivery and underpinning scholarship; to ensure clinical education curriculum and training produces competent and safe health care professionals, and to manage and effectively lead people across different levels of complex organisations.

To equip students for these roles, this subject will cover theories and models of leadership and how concepts of leadership can be applied to health care education leaders. The subject content will be grounded in the context of current reforms in education and training.

Recognising, responding, managing and leading clinical education in this context, requires clinicians with current or future clinical leadership responsibilities to have a scholarly grasp of leadership and change management theory. Students will also require skills in change management, leading in complex organisations, and methods of transformational, interpersonal and distributed leadership.

Teaching/learning formats include case studies with small and full group discussions, interactive presentations, panel discussions and asynchronous learning via Canvas (videos, text, reflection and discussions). The informal exchange of insights and experiences among participants and invited lecturers drawn from multiple professional disciplines is a vital part of the experience.

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This project involves the conduct of a defined research project and results in the production of a minor thesis on a topic of practical importance to the participant’s work in clinical education. Participants are encouraged and supported to select a topic that is important yet feasible to resolve within the bounds of this project. Preliminary work in refining the research question, designing the methodology, reviewing the literature and applying for ethics approval is undertaken in the preceding semester’s subject: “Research Proposal in Clinical Education”.

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