LEARNING ON INTERDISCIPLINARY GERONTOLOGICAL TEAMS: INSTRUCTIONAL CONCEPTS AND METHODS

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Abstract
The use of geriatric and gerontological health care teams has become increasingly widespread, and institutions of higher education need to provide more training opportunities for students from different health disciplines to work together as interdisciplinary teams. At the same time, new and innovative means of enhancing and monitoring the effectiveness of our instructional methods in team development must be developed. This paper reports on two methods used in a course on interdisciplinary teamwork in gerontology that have proven useful in fostering and gauging students’ progress in becoming team players. The first method is a structured journal in which students record observational, theoretical, and methodological notes in the process of experiential learning. The important conceptual underpinnings of this process and the use of writing as a way of encouraging collaborative learning are emphasized. The second method is a team development inventory that is completed each week by the students and uses a semantic‐differential format to measure their reactions and attitudes to working together as a team. The implications of these methods for the development and refinement of educational methods to stimulate team development are explored, particularly use of the metaphor of coaching to describe the faculty‐student mentoring relationship.

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