Vicki Dale
Vicki H.M. Dale
LIVE Research Fellow, Lifelong Learning
Contact me
tel 01707 666439
About me
I'm a Research Fellow in the LIVE Centre, appointed in April 2007 to explore lifelong learning in veterinary education. Therefore adult learning theory, continuing professional development, and career aspirations and choices are things that fall within my remit.
What I hope to get out of this project
I'm really interested to see how the pathology residents engage with this resource. I also like evaluation research, so determining the usefulness of the resource as a teaching aid is of interest to me i.e. how can we validate it?
I'm also interested in how we can replicate good face to face communication in an online environment, as i think it's the 'personal touch' that will be most difficult to simulate online. As we discussed at the July 07 workshop, this can be simulated through reflection and personal anecdotes.
I'd quite like to see a section established on teaching tips and pedagogy, so we can look at things like how we 'scaffold' learning (term coined by Jerome Bruner).
My best learning experience
Exploring virtual space
My best learning experience ....? This takes me back to being an archaeology student. We had this great lecturer, John Barrett. He was a bronze or iron age man (I can't actually remember now!), and he was very inspirational, especially on field trips. What I liked about John's teaching was that he encouraged us to thing about exploring archaeological sites in three dimensions i.e. imagine how the spaces would have been constructed, where the walls and doors would have been, and how people moved through space. I guess that's got implications for virtual space. How will people navigate through this virtual world that we're creating? How do they create meaning in a way that's personal to them?
Pathology that interests me
As an Educational Technologist, as part of the CLIVE project, I authored a number of pathology computer-aided learning programs with veterinary pathologists at the University of Glasgow, mainly Dr. Hal Thompson. What I liked about the programs I developed with Hal is that they were largely visual, and he explained the pathology as he went over his storyboards, so I could understand it, which helped me to structure the learning activities in the CAL. He also saw a lot of interesting cases, including forensic pathology, which he brought into the teaching, along with his knowledge of the history of pathology. He had a good all-round knowledge, and stressed the importance of lateral thinking in terms of problem-solving, which I admired.
Pathology that is difficult
I guess as a visual learner I find it easier to concentrate on gross pathology, or very noticeable clinical signs of disease. Once it starts getting to the microscopic level it starts to get tricky for me, as although it's visual, it's a bit more abstract. It looks pretty though.