Digital storytelling in Nursing

Seminar: The use of digital storytelling across disciplines and institutions. Cape Peninsula University of Technology:

Cape Town Campus

Penny Gill, Eunice Ivala, Daniela Gachago, Linda Mkhize, Zubeida Petersen and Nazma Vajat

23rd August 2012

Introduction Digital Story-telling - in Higher Education - in Nursing Theoretical Framework Project Design Impact of the study for Teaching and Learning Challenges encountered in implementation of

DST Strategies for enhancing meaningful use of DST Recommendations for future use.

Outline of Presentation

STORYTELLING TRADITION

Storytelling tradition in Africa

San Rock art to illustrate their stories

Digital storytellingDigital storytelling is the modern equivalent of ancient story-telling

defined as a short first personmulti-media video narrative documents human life experience, ideas or feelings through story-telling(Center for Digital Story-telling, 2012).

Digital storytelling supports learner-centred approaches,

COLLABORATIVE

LEARNING

REFLECTION

FOR DEEP LEARNING

DEVELOPMENT

OF DIGITAL LITERACIES

EFFECTIVE INTEGRATION OF TECHNOLOGY INTO TEACHING &

LEARNING

PROJECT-BASED

LEARNING

DIGITALSTORYTELLING

DST in Higher Education educational technology

utilizes meaningful activities to construct meaning in different ways. Trilling & Hood (1999)

increase student’s understanding of curricular content. Sadik (2008)

DST in Higher Education assists students gain

literacy skills. Robin (2006) addresses the needs of

students with different learning styles. Matthews-DeNatal (2008)

utilizes almost all the skills the student needs in the 21st century Jakes(2006); Bugan & Robin (2008)

DST in Higher Education

- engenders student’s

creativity, creates critical

thinkers & critical viewers

of media

- improves research skills

& builds learning

communities

DST IN NURSING

Many applications in under and post graduate nursing

Can be used to challenge negative experiences in nursing

DST IN NURSING

Exposes students to human experience of being a patient and encourage the development of sensitive individualised and compassionate practice. (Wood and Wilson-Barnett, 1999; Costello and Home, 2001; Repper and Breeze, 2004.

ECP NURSING CONTEXT

acute shortage of nurses

implemented in January 2008

Government DoH bursary provided to students/Faculty funding DoE

Background to the study Negative status

Impact on self-esteem

Low academic literacy skills (NBT)

Mature students, many socio-economic problems / poverty

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKTajfel and Turner(1979) The Social Identity Theory categorise themselves into one or more in-

groups, building a part of their identity on the basis of

membership of that group and enforcing boundaries with other groups

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKTajfel and Turner(1979

3 elements

- categorisation

- identification

- comparison

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKTajfel and Turner(1979) Social identity theory: how does

belonging to a social group impact on student engagement and success?

Link between student’s social identities and student engagement

Peer groups engage in social creativity realigning their value system away from success in class in order to maintain a positive social identity

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKTajfel and Turner(1979) Is Social identity: based on social

class / race or ethnicity / track

there is high correlation between tracking students and engagement Kelly(2008)

TRACKING

Tracking greatly polarizes the differences in attitudes and behaviours between high and low track students (differentiation – polarization theory)

Strategies for students: Individual mobility Social creativity Direct competition

Reasons for disengagement

Consequences of disengagement much less felt for students who already have been labelled low-achievers than students that are high achievers

Little opportunity for upward mobility

PROJECT DESIGN Topic: Caring for people with

disabilities, linking personal experiences / stories with care theory

Influenced by Centre for DS workshop model

PROJECT DESIGN

3 workshops over the course of 2 months1st Workshop: introduction, community map, mind map in groupsSelf-study: development of script and recording, 4 weeks service learning2nd Workshop: Finalising of scripts, recording, MovieMaker3rd Workshop: Screening and debriefing (focus groups

Centre for Digital Storytelling

Origins from community theatre, strong social change background

Focus on collective sharing of stories, story circle

Focus on stories that are usually not heard

Everybody has a story to tell Silenced voices

Participation and Learning Techniques

Community mapDrawing a map of community with resources and challengesLink back to students’ communities and lived service learning experiences among studentsVisual techniques to help students with low academic literacyImproves meaningful learning, transfer of theory and practice

Research design Qualitative study

Focus groups with all 6 groups of students (2 groups per focus group)

Each approximately 1 hour

Inductive method of analysis

Findings and discussionThemes that arose: Developing a nursing

identity Empathizing with the

patient Link to communities Collaboration Acquisition of

knowledge/multimodality Challenges

Developing nursing identity

Extending views of what it means to be a nurse

Moving from self-doubt to achievement.

Skills transfer

Empathizing with patient

New insights Understanding and empathizing with

patient “What I got to learn about the

unconscious patient is that they need people around them even if they don’t feel anything.. I think I will change like how I treat them

Link to communities

Helps transferring knowledge and experiences into community:

Combining information from personal experience and research:

Collaboration Group cohesion

Development of individual identities within groups

Peer support, learning from each other

Distribution of roles within the group

Acquisition of knowledge / multimodality

Different from normal assignments

Active/deep learning

Understanding the subject content better with DS

Challenges in:

Communication amongst group members

Access to computers and training

Diverse computer skills in groups

Challenges continued Lack of time

Lack of support from lecturers

No mark for digital stories

Technical problems disappointment with recording of the sound.

Discussion: Digital Storytelling Exposes students to the human

experience of being a patient and encourages the development of sensitive individualised and compassionate practice. (Wood and Wilson-Barnett, 1999; Costello and Home, 2001; Repper and Breeze, 2004)

Discussion: Digital Storytelling engages in “meaning making”

helps build connections with prior knowledge

good stories are remembered longer by students than lessons that lack them

Discussion Social identity theory: comparison

with other groups, feeling of dissatisfaction

But also pride and confidence in final product

Embodied learning, empathising with patients

Discussion Unconscious / taken for granted roles

(in and out groups / more holistic perception of identity as nurse

Transferable skills

Blurring boundaries between formal / informal learning (Barrett 2006)

Recommendations Integration into curriculum and

grading

Extra workshop for MovieMaker

Access to labs over period of time

Make sure all students develop skills

Include IT department and English teacher in the project

Acknowledgements This project was partly funded by the

2011 Research on Innovation in Teaching and Learning Fund

Thanks to ECP lecturer Zubeida and ECP2 2012 students

Special word of thanks to Daniela, Eunice, Linda and librarian Nazma

REFERENCES

On request

gillp@cput.ac.za