University of Edinburgh, UK.
Med Teach. 2009 Aug;31(8):721-4. doi: 10.1080/01421590903124732.
The development of online virtual patients has proved to be an effective vehicle for pedagogical and technological skills transfer and capacity building for medical and healthcare educators in Malawi. A project between the University of Edinburgh and the University of Malawi has delivered more than 20 collaboratively developed, virtual patients, contextualised for in-country medical and healthcare education and, more significantly, a cadre of healthcare professionals skilled in developing digital resources and integrating these into their emerging curricula. The process of engaging with new approaches to teaching and delivering personalised, context sensitive content via a game-informed, technology-supported process has contributed to the ability of healthcare educators in Malawi to drive pedagogical change, meet the substantial challenges of delivering new curricula, cope with increasing student numbers and promote teacher professional development. This initial phase of the project has laid the foundation for a broader second phase that focuses on promoting curriculum change, developing educational infrastructure and in-country capacity to create, and integrate digital resources into education and training across multi-professional groups and across educational levels.
在线虚拟患者的开发已被证明是一种有效的教学工具和技术技能转移方式，有助于马拉维的医学和医疗保健教育工作者的能力建设。爱丁堡大学和马拉维大学之间的一个项目已经交付了 20 多个协作开发的虚拟患者，这些患者针对国内的医学和医疗保健教育进行了情境化设置，更重要的是，还培养了一批熟练掌握开发数字资源并将其整合到新兴课程中的医疗保健专业人员。通过游戏化、技术支持的过程来采用新的教学方法并提供个性化、上下文敏感的内容，这有助于马拉维的医疗保健教育工作者推动教学变革，应对新课程的巨大挑战，应对不断增加的学生人数，并促进教师的专业发展。该项目的初始阶段为第二阶段奠定了基础，第二阶段的重点是促进课程变革，发展教育基础设施和国内能力，以跨多专业群体和各级教育创建和整合数字资源。
