Author : Evmorfia Koukia 1
Date of Publication :8th March 2017
Abstract: Workshops tend to be a vivid and productive way as an in vivo teaching method. Due to the pandemic COVID-19 university courses were conducted through the Internet. Method: Due to the Pandemic restrictions, it was tried for the first time to integrate online art therapy workshops in a core course named “Special Themes of Mental Health Nursing†in an MSc Program in Mental Health. The course lasts 3 hours per week for 11 weeks in a single semester. The course has a main instructor, a professor of psychiatric nursing experience in art therapy workshops, and visiting art therapists. All art therapists were given a certain topic to cover. Students were encouraged to keep a personal notebook that was evaluated at the end of the semester and was submitted as a part of the examination process of the course. An interview of 20 minutes was conducted with each student at the end of the course by an independent investigator (an assistant professor). Participants: The students (sample) of the program were: nurses, psychologists, and social workers. Results: All students who participated in the course found that the learning process was vivid, encouraging participation, and self-motivation and there were no main differences from in vivo learning concerning learning outcomes. The students identified their personal needs, and they felt a personal connection with the learning experience. The personalized learning resulted in students discovering their strengths and weaknesses and developing skills like critical thinking. Additionally, they all reported that with online they have less communication between them, they are losing important information concerning the forming of a team, and in the end, they prefer face-to-face teaching. Conclusion: All students admitted that the workshops were the optimal way for them to comprehend the courses’ content, their capability to become therapists, as well as their obstacles and weaknesses while working with patients in mental health but they consider online teaching a necessity only because of the Pandemic restrictions.
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