What is different about interprofessional education?

Author: Ali Ewing, Principal Lecturer Learning and Teaching

July 2010The University of Northampton

Park Campus, Boughton Green RoadNORTHAMPTON, UK. NN2 7AL

What is required to deliver interprofessional education,that is different to delivering

education to our own students?

The crux of this lecture...

Essential skills for facilitating interprofessional learning

We require a clear understanding of :

The purpose of the learning

Why is it being implemented

Commitment to interprofessional learning

Stakeholders and champions

Own values and beliefs

Areas of expertise required

An adult learning approach

Ability to use participants as a learning resource

Management of group dynamics and processes

Differences in language and terminology

Service and client care as the focus

Confidence to ‘take risks’ outside of feeling secure within own professional identity

Willingness to stretch boundaries

Areas of expertise required

Ability to understand differences as well as commonalities

Ability to positively challenge

Be comfortable with and promote reflectiveness

Areas of expertise required

Ability to stand back and refrain from being judgemental

Recognise you will not have all the answers

Interactive learning approaches and teamworking skills

Areas of expertise required

Facilitators must have ability to identify and address a range of complex issues

Differences in motivation and expectations of the student group

Potentiality for corrupting processes of occupational / professional socialisation, which are unwittingly being transferred between facilitator and students of their own profession

Different professional cultures

Reasons for perceived resistance

Issues of power and status

Valuing each professional identity, difference and diversity

Facilitators must have ability to identify and address a range of complex issues

‘Tell me and I will forget;show me and I may remember;involve me and I will understand.’

Confucius (450BC)

And finally...

This work was produced as part of the TIGER project and funded by JISC and the HEA in 2011. For further information see: http://www.northampton.ac.uk/tiger.

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