New technology and social media platforms offer a multitude of possibilities to engage in creative teaching and learning. In an innovative move, the Division of Orthopaedic Surgery has expanded its digital teaching to YouTube. The channel features videos made by and for students. Videos made by students are the culmination of a group project that has replaced case reports as a form of assessment. So far, the videos have proven popular with undergraduates who enjoy the teamwork and are motivated to contribute to learning by making expressive video content. Speaking about the advantages of group activities, Tulisa Kopele, a student, said, “Not everyone has a smartphone but we worked together. We saw how others are thinking and could teach each other.” 

With the world now at its fingertips, the Division also streams its Tuesday 8-10 pm post-graduate tutorials via Adobe Connect. A recent class had Zimbabwean registrars from Harare, East London and Kenya watching a tutorial on cerebral palsy. 

Interview with Dr Michael Held, Director of the Othopaedic Research Unit

Dr Michael Held, Director of the Orthopaedic Research Unit, has played a key role in some of the innovative IT changes in teaching in the Division. We reached out to him find out more about this exciting new platform. 

FHS News: Please tell us about the YouTube learning platform and how it came about. 

Michael Held (MH): We felt like we had to make our teaching program more accessible and use internet and visual aspects such as videos and pictures to reach our students. By making it an 'open access’ resource, we wanted to break down barriers, engaging remote areas and African neighbours without an established academic programme for Orthopaedic Surgery.  We wanted to use student-created content to enable them to take ownership of this project and to see, understand and teach Orthopaedic Surgery through their eyes. Therefore, Jeannie McCaul is one of our postgraduate students who has driven this project alongside me. 

FHS News: Creating videos is now part of the UG assessment. Which UG year is assessed through this method and what are the benefits as opposed to using case reports? 

MH: This assignment is being used for our 5th year medical students in their orthopaedic block.  They have been very enthusiastic to package knowledge into an entertaining, engaging experience using their creativity to express their approach to topics of our syllabus.  We feel the video assignment makes their learning more active and experiential and provides the opportunity to collaborate and bond with fellow students, one of the most important traits to become a successful clinician.   

FHS News: How have students adjusted to this new way of assessment? 

MH: Our initial worries were that not every student was in possession of a smart phone or video camera and did not have the technical knowhow to create and edit a video for education purposes.  We were surprised to see how high the technical and educational standard of these videos was.  To have groups of 3 students working on a project also meant that equipment, resources and knowledge could be shared. The individual student became part of the powerful idea to teach peers through their videos, a huge motivation to this project, which raised the quality of the assignments, and therefore the videos.  

FHS News: The platform also invites post-graduate participants from other countries into your classroom through live streaming. How did this come about and what do you hope to achieve by reaching out to students from other countries?  

MH: Our main goal in making these videos and our lectures available to students in South Africa and other countries is to raise the standard of orthopaedic care and to grow our footprint. Many of the international fellows and students visiting us for part of their training have voiced their appreciation for our teaching programme and wanted to continue participating in it.  We try to keep our lectures and tutorials relevant for the care of patients in South Africa without losing track of international trends and guidelines and found that many students from other countries in Africa can relate to our approach. To see students form Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria becoming part of our lectures and videos also makes our students understand what impact they can have and the responsibility to share their knowledge with their peers.