Presentavote streamlines medical teaching seminars at St Luke’s Hospital
Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust (Tees Base Unit) has introduced Presentavote, the interactive handheld audience response system, to streamline its teaching seminars at St Luke’s Hospital, Middlesbrough.
What was needed?
Each year, the provision for mental health training for the Tees Base Unit is provided by the Medical Development Centre of Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust. The Medical Development Centre delivers its medical student teaching programme to over 160 students from Newcastle University.
Although the Medical Development Centre delivered informative and well structured teaching sessions, it felt that greater interactivity would help to improve the effectiveness of programme delivery.
Medical development manager, Bryan O’Leary, explains: “From time to time, students would become a little less attentive, so we wanted to find a way to create more impact and help them stay focused on learning for longer periods.”
The Solution
The Medical Development Centre sought the advice of local reseller, KBR, to identify a solution which would help make teaching seminars more dynamic. KBR recommended Promethean’s Presentavote, an interactive handheld audience response system designed to engage learning groups.
Integrating seamlessly with Powerpoint, Presentavote allows group members to respond in question and answer sessions using individual handsets. The results are instantly recorded and can be exported to Excel to be used again after the session.
Bryan continues: “We could see how Presentavote would bring presentations to life and make the seminars a lot more interesting for the students. Teachers can easily build question slides, as the system comes with a simple slide wizard which guides them through the process.” The implementation of Presentavote at the Medical Development Centre has enabled tutors to compare the views of students and ascertain their understanding of key issues. Bryan says: “The system allows students to give their feedback without being put on the spot and at the same time creates a stimulating environment.”
The verdict
In an introductory seminar to mental health, Bryan describes how Presentavote proved extremely useful when posing questions to gain an insight into students’ understanding of mental health issues: “We presented a set of options to which students gave their feedback using the Presentavote handsets. When we’ve asked similar questions in the past, students have been a little unsure to answer, but the anonymity function of Presentavote made them much keener to respond.
”Having seen the value Presentavote has brought to session delivery, the Medical Development Centre plans to use the system outside of teaching time. Bryan concludes: “Presentavote can be used in any group scenario, so we thought we would extend its use to create more interactive staff meetings. There is a lot of scope for this system, and we’re really enjoying developing its use.”
- Presentavote keeps students on the medical teaching programme attentive for longer periods
- The system has allowed teachers to make teaching seminars more stimulating
- Students’ views can be displayed as results or graphs, encouraging further group discussion
- The anonymity function encourages students to give honest feedback
- Presentavote can be used in any group scenario where feedback needs to be documented and saved