UCC SONM 25 Year Book

UCC / School of Nursing and Midwifery

A VTS workshop organised by Ms Sioban Murphy, VTS Project Director at the College of Medicine and Health and given by Ms Yoon Kang- O’Higgins, VTS Program Director was attended by VTS facilitators from across all five Schools within the College of Medicine and Health, 2015

Undergraduate students engaging in a VTS session in an Art Gallery

In addition staff within the school have sought to embrace new approaches to teaching and learning. One example of this is Visual Thinking Strategies. Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a teaching method that uses visual observations to enhance critical thinking and observation skills. VTS also aims to help students to cultivate a willingness and ability to present their own ideas, while respecting and learning from the perspectives of their peers. Evidence suggests that exposure to VTS significantly improves skills of observation, critical thinking, evidence-based reasoning and communication. In 2011, a move to integrate VTS into healthcare education was undertaken in the College of Medicine and Health, UCC. VTS was integrated into the curriculum for each undergraduate programme – Nursing, Medicine, Dentistry, Clinical Therapies and Pharmacy. Training for facilitation of VTS took substantial effort and was guided by Ms Yoon Kang-O’Higgins and Sioban Murphy. During a VTS session students are shown a work of art/ image and trained VTS facilitators use the same open ended questions to facilitate discussion on each image. The facilitator reframes and reflects the students responses back to the group, based on evidence shown in the picture. VTS methodology provides a specific framework for training nursing students in observation and helps us to recognise the contribution arts can make to health and wellbeing. Currently VTS is integrated into all undergraduate programmes in the School of Nursing and Midwifery.

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