Using Computers to Support Health Sciences Student Consultations
with FASD* Experts
Characteristics of PBL
Ruta Valaitis, School of Nursing, McMaster University
Purpose
Wendy Sword, School of Nursing, McMaster University
 to explore experiences and
perceptions of health sciences students
use of online computer conferencing for
consultation with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum
Disorder (FASD*) experts
A curriculum organized around problems
that are relevant to desired learning
outcomes, rather than organized by topics or
disciplines.

Bob Jones, Visualization Design Institute, Sheridan College
Andrea Hodges, Social and Public Health Services, McMaster
University
Scenario
Student Groups
Conditions that facilitate small-group, selfdirected learning, independent study,
functional knowledge, critical thinking, life
long learning, and self-evolution.


Midwifery

Nursing

Neonatal Nurse Practitioners
Online Conference with Experts
 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
 Brigitte Boire
 Pregnancy
(Rideout and Carpio, 2001)
 Newborn infant
Dialogue between Anna Guardian and a student:
 Young child
Student: Any strategies that you have developed as their caregiver that you have found really helpful?
Anna Guardian:
I have tried many differnt stratigies , one for her eatingproblems, one for her behavior , one for sleeping . For her eating problems we have tried giving her finger
foods with different tectures , i would try to give her a little bit of something new , but she wasnot ready to eat , she would spit it uot after chewing it , i tried giving
her things she wanted to eat , like a sandwhich but that did not work . I tried telling her that she can have the same as granma but that did not work . I tried peer
pressure with her cousin who is 1 year younger , sometimes that worked and the next time it didnot . she does eat better at school than at home because of all the
kids. she forgot how to use her spoon and had to have large handle spoon and be taught again. she is eating a little better now but only when she wants to eat . I
make soft food for her because she does not have to work as hard to eat . What i have found the most helpfull with her is to make sure she is not tired when i want
her to eat ,because she will refuse .
sleeping has always been very hard because fetal babies are very restless and hyper . to get my grandaughter to sleep was always a big strugle. i tried making the
room very dark , that worked while she was younger . then she started having nightmares , and would scream for hours no matter what you did . then i tried music to
calm her . that worked for a while then the nightmares started again . Her brother was getting older and sleeping through the night . i put his crib in with her now she
is sleeping again ,but i still have to play music .She will often take hours to go to sleep at night, but she still gets up at 6 in the morning . when she does not sleep , we
have a very bad morning untill she goes to sleep . it is the same at the school . she also will not go to sleep with out her bottle ,we have tried several times to stop
the bottle , but the tantrums are so bad we have to give in . the school called after an hour of her screaming for her botltle , i had to take it to her for her to settle
down .we have quiet time together before bed to get her calm enough to go to sleep . i also try to stay to a routine as much as possible ., which is a big help because
alcohal babies have problems with transitions . I also tell her many times in advance to help her with changesThe last 2 were the bigest help to me . as you can see it
is difficult to keep her under controlwhen i thing stop working you try another , and go back to things you tried before bcause they may work again . the most
important thing is to be consistent and avoid a lot of changes . they have problems with i change 2 is almost impossible . Her temper tantrums were realy bad when
she was learning to walk and talk and now she is starting to have them again . . . .
So in that way it was useful but I found that I skimmed through a
lot that I really wasn’t interested in or the question wasn’t quite
what I was looking for, so I just sort of skimmed through that.
I was disappointed in a response from [one of the experts]. [The
expert] really didn't answer my question and it took a week for [the
expert] to respond.
Well just that it was a real person. It wasn’t a thing that was cleanly made and
polished and whatever. It’s a real person reacting to your question and reacting to
their experience and relating their experience to you.
Strengths:
Provided authentic learning experience
Felt confidence to write to experts
Experts invited dialogue
Experts provided detailed responses
Experts were easy to access online
Limitations:
Information not always relevant
Responses sometimes disappointing
Some forgot about experts online
or how to access them
Conclusions
Habits are hard to break. But in all honesty there had been so many other things
that sort of happened in that first week or so that remembering about those other
resources just fell off of the neurons. And I don’t know whether I just got
habitulated to what that initial screen looked like, and I don’t know whether it’s
even identified under. What is it identified under? Is it Resources or something?
Is that the icon that it is?
Although some limitations exist, online consultations
with experts in the community can be a valuable
learning resource for health sciences students.
It just gave me confidence that no matter what I wrote or
whatever question I wanted to ask that it mattered and that I
would get a response and so it was a valuable part of the
experience.
The [expert] also posted another message. I don’t know if you guys saw,
and said I check my e-mail every day and keep the questions coming, . . .
which was really good. Because you think you don’t want to kind of take
up [the experts] time really, but that was encouraging.
That [expert] posted like a huge response. Like very, very detailed.
Like, we have people contacts but we rarely use them. Just because we can
post an e-mail to them it was much easier to access those resources.
Visualization Design Institute