̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Riikka Hofmann

‘Hologram patients’ developed to help train doctors and nurses

ta385 — Tue, 28 Jun 2022 15:00:00 +0000

HoloScenarios, a new training application based on life-like holographic patient scenarios, is being developed by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH), in partnership with the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Los Angeles-based tech company GigXR. ̽��ֱ��first module focuses on common respiratory conditions and emergencies.

"Mixed reality is increasingly recognised as a useful method of simulator training,” said Dr Arun Gupta, consultant anaesthetist at CUH and director of postgraduate education at Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Health Partnership, who is leading the project.

“As institutions scale procurement, the demand for platforms that offer utility and ease of mixed reality learning management is rapidly expanding," he said.

Learners in the same room, wearing Microsoft HoloLens mixed-reality headsets, are able to see each other in real life, while also interacting with a multi-layered, medically accurate holographic patient. This creates a unique environment to learn and practice vital, real-time decision making and treatment choices.

Through the same type of headset, medical instructors are also able to change patient responses, introduce complications and record observations and discussions – whether in person in a teaching group or remotely to multiple locations worldwide, via the internet.

Learners can also watch, contribute to and assess the holographic patient scenarios from Android, iOS smartphone or tablet. This means true-to-life, safe-to-fail immersive learning can be accessed, delivered and shared across the world, with the technology now available for license to learning institutions everywhere.

Alongside the development and release of HoloScenarios, an analysis of the new technology as a teaching and learning resource is being led by Professor Riikka Hofmann at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education.

“Our research is aimed at uncovering how such simulations can best support learning and accelerate the adoption of effective mixed reality training while informing ongoing development,” said Hofmann.

“We hope that it will help guide institutions in implementing mixed reality into their curricula, in the same way institutions evaluate conventional resources, such as textbooks, manikins, models or computer software, and, ultimately, improve patient outcomes.”

Junior doctor Aniket Bharadwaj is one of the first to try out the new technology. "Throughout medical school we would have situations where actors would come in an act as patients. With the pandemic a lot of that changed to tablet based interactions because of the risk to people of the virus,” he said.

“Having a hologram patient you can see, hear and interact with is really exciting and will really make a difference to student learning."

̽��ֱ��first module features a hologram patient with asthma, followed by anaphylaxis, pulmonary embolism and pneumonia. Further modules in cardiology and neurology are in development.

Delivered by the Gig Immersive Learning Platform, HoloScenarios aims to centralise and streamline access and management of mixed reality learning, and encapsulate the medical experience of world-leading doctors at CUH and across the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

̽��ֱ��new technology could also provide more flexible, cost-effective training without heavy resource demands of traditional simulation, which can make immersive training financially prohibitive. This includes costs for maintaining simulation centres, their equipment and the faculty and staff hours to operate the labs and hire and train patient actors.

This story was first published on the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals website

A new partnership involving Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospitals (CUH) and the ̽��ֱ��’s Faculty of Education, brings medical training using 'mixed reality' technology one step closer. ̽��ֱ��project aims to make consistent, high-level and relevant clinical training more accessible across the world.

̽��ֱ��demand for platforms that offer utility and ease of mixed reality learning management is rapidly expanding

Dr Arun Gupta

CUH/GigXR

Clinicians at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, using HoloScenarios, a new training application based on life-like holographic patient scenarios. Image: CUH/GigXR

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Trainee teachers made sharper assessments about learning difficulties after receiving feedback from AI

tdk25 — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 08:41:49 +0000

̽��ֱ��study, with 178 trainee teachers in Germany, was carried out by a research team led by academics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU Munich). It provides some of the first evidence that artificial intelligence (AI) could enhance teachers’ ‘diagnostic reasoning’: the ability to collect and assess evidence about a pupil, and draw appropriate conclusions so they can be given tailored support.

During the trial, trainees were asked to assess six fictionalised ‘simulated’ pupils with potential learning difficulties. They were given examples of their schoolwork, as well as other information such as behaviour records and transcriptions of conversations with parents. They then had to decide whether or not each pupil had learning difficulties such as dyslexia or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and explain their reasoning.

Immediately after submitting their answers, half of the trainees received a prototype ‘expert solution’, written in advance by a qualified professional, to compare with their own. This is typical of the practice material student teachers usually receive outside taught classes. ̽��ֱ��others received AI-generated feedback, which highlighted the correct parts of their solution and flagged aspects they might have improved.

After completing the six preparatory exercises, the trainees then took two similar follow-up tests – this time without any feedback. ̽��ֱ��tests were scored by the researchers, who assessed both their ‘diagnostic accuracy’ (whether the trainees had correctly identified cases of dyslexia or ADHD), and their diagnostic reasoning: how well they had used the available evidence to make this judgement.

̽��ֱ��average score for diagnostic reasoning among trainees who had received AI feedback during the six preliminary exercises was an estimated 10 percentage points higher than those who had worked with the pre-written expert solutions.

̽��ֱ��reason for this may be the ‘adaptive’ nature of the AI. Because it analysed the trainee teachers’ own work, rather than asking them to compare it with an expert version, the researchers believe the feedback was clearer. There is no evidence, therefore, that AI of this type would improve on one-to-one feedback from a human tutor or high-quality mentor, but the researchers point out that such close support is not always readily available to trainee teachers for repeat practice, especially those on larger courses.

̽��ֱ��study was part of a research project within the Cambridge LMU Strategic Partnership. ̽��ֱ��AI was developed with support from a team at the Technical ̽��ֱ�� of Darmstadt.

Riikka Hofmann, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “Teachers play a critical role in recognising the signs of disorders and learning difficulties in pupils and referring them to specialists. Unfortunately, many of them also feel that they have not had sufficient opportunity to practise these skills. ̽��ֱ��level of personalised guidance trainee teachers get on German courses is different to the UK, but in both cases it is possible that AI could provide an extra level of individualised feedback to help them develop these essential competencies.”

Dr Michael Sailer, from LMU Munich, said: “Obviously we are not arguing that AI should replace teacher-educators: new teachers still need expert guidance on how to recognise learning difficulties in the first place. It does seem, however, that AI-generated feedback helped these trainees to focus on what they really needed to learn. Where personal feedback is not readily available, it could be an effective substitute.”

̽��ֱ��study used a natural language processing system: an artificial neural network capable of analysing human language and spotting certain phrases, ideas, hypotheses or evaluations in the trainees’ text.

It was created using the responses of an earlier cohort of pre-service teachers to a similar exercise. By segmenting and coding these responses, the team ‘trained’ the system to recognise the presence or absence of key points in the solutions provided by trainees during the trial. ̽��ֱ��system then selected pre-written blocks of text to give the participants appropriate feedback.

In both the preparatory exercises and the follow-up tasks, the trial participants were either asked to work individually, or assigned to randomly-selected pairs. Those who worked alone and received expert solutions during the preparatory exercises scored, on average, 33% for their diagnostic reasoning during the follow-up tasks. By contrast, those who had received AI feedback scored 43%. Similarly, the average score of trainees working in pairs was 35% if they had received the expert solution, but 45% if they had received support from the AI.

Training with the AI appeared to have no major effect on their ability to diagnose the simulated pupils correctly. Instead, it seems to have made a difference by helping teachers to cut through the various information sources that they were being asked to read, and provide specific evidence of potential learning difficulties. This is the main skill most teachers actually need in the classroom: the task of diagnosing pupils falls to special education teachers, school psychologists, and medical professionals. Teachers need to be able to communicate and evidence their observations to specialists where they have concerns, to help students access appropriate support.

How far AI could be used more widely to support teachers’ reasoning skills remains an open question, but the research team hope to undertake further studies to explore the mechanisms that made it effective in this case, and assess this wider potential.

Frank Fischer, Professor of Education and Educational Psychology at LMU Munich, said: “In large training programmes, which are fairly common in fields such as teacher training or medical education, using AI to support simulation-based learning could have real value. Developing and implementing complex natural language-processing tools for this purpose takes time and effort, but if it helps to improve the reasoning skills of future cohorts of professionals, it may well prove worth the investment.”

̽��ֱ��research is published in Learning and Instruction.

A trial in which trainee teachers who were being taught to identify pupils with potential learning difficulties had their work ‘marked’ by artificial intelligence has found the approach significantly improved their reasoning.

It is possible that AI could provide an extra level of individualised feedback to help [teachers] develop these essential competencies

Riikka Hofmann

Annie Spratt

Young boy completes homework

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Research at the chalk face: connecting academia and schools

lw528 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 10:00:50 +0000

Twenty years ago, two head teachers walked into the ̽��ֱ��’s Department of Education with a proposal. We want to work with you, they told academics, but don’t just come and “do research on us”. We want to work in partnership.

̽��ֱ��approach might have met short shrift in more traditional institutions, but the outward-looking Education Department, now the Faculty of Education, was different. Already working closely with over 30 schools on a school-based teacher education programme, and welcoming many teachers onto its Masterʼs and PhD programmes, it saw the chance to forge new bonds.

Two decades on, School– ̽��ֱ�� Partnership for Educational Research (SUPER) continues to flourish, bringing together academics and teachers from 12 schools around the eastern region. ̽��ֱ��partners devise and run collective research projects – on topics from pupil engagement to teacher learning – and share findings within and beyond the group.

̽��ֱ��latest project has focused on the increasingly critical area of pupil resilience, as Dr Ros McLellan, coordinator of the SUPER network, explains: “Across the UK, mental health issues in children are increasing while wellbeing is deteriorating. Evidence shows that wellbeing programmes in schools can lead to significant improvements in children’s mental health, and social and emotional skills. But we know that funding constraints and lack of prominence given to wellbeing in the inspection framework create real challenges for schools. Our research is asking how resilience and wellbeing can be promoted in a results-driven educational climate.”

̽��ֱ��group devised a wellbeing survey that was conducted across the partner schools, backed up by detailed pupil interviews. ̽��ֱ��findings showed that girls and Year 10 students are more vulnerable at secondary school – and that students from low-income backgrounds are vulnerable at all ages.

“ ̽��ֱ��individual schools are now introducing their own wellbeing interventions tailored to the needs revealed by the study, and we’ll be working with them as they assess and share the impact of the interventions,” says McLellan.

A ‘toolkit’ to help schools

SUPER is one of a range of projects forging direct connections between the Faculty – part of a world-leading university that is often viewed primarily in an international context – and the living, breathing community of pupils, parents and teachers on its doorstep.

Dr Riikka Hofmann, for instance, has been working with local schools on understanding how best to improve students’ learning – finding that approaches that draw on interaction and students’ ideas can achieve better outcomes. But she has also found that it’s not always easy for schools – especially those in deprived areas that are tackling a wide range of pupil needs – to translate research findings into teaching practice.

“We know that teachers find it difficult to take up new forms of learning, no matter how effective research shows them to be,” she explains. “Schools may be concerned about the short-term risks for performance outcomes and inspections involved in trialling new practices. Also, teachers in schools serving disadvantaged populations can hold limiting views of their students’ capabilities and be less likely to introduce change.”

Hofmann’s latest project, backed by an Economic and Social Research Council-funded Impact Acceleration grant, is creating a ‘toolkit’ to help schools introduce and evaluate effective educational techniques to boost teaching and learning. Her team is working with four eastern region partnership schools in which a high proportion of students face multiple disadvantages, such as financial or language difficulties.

She aims to make the toolkit available to all schools, nationally and ultimately globally. Tried and tested Faculty research, she argues, should benefit all schools, not only those with fewer challenges to divert them, and ensuring this happens is as much part of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s widening participation agenda as diversifying admissions. “It is well known that some of the core barriers to raising aspirations among disadvantaged children happen not only at widening participation in terms of university admissions, but also much earlier, in learning opportunities that disadvantaged children have in school.

“We are a university with a global mission and that includes focusing on disadvantaged communities everywhere, including those near us. ̽��ֱ��East of England has some of the most deprived areas in the whole country. Our work aims to have a positive impact on the people in those communities, and also helps us to understand the ways change can happen in disadvantaged settings.”

Language learning

̽��ֱ��busy two-way pipeline linking the Faculty of Education and schools in the region also lies at the heart of a partnership that focuses on exploring the influence of multilingual identity on foreign language learning among teenagers and its relationship with attainment. ̽��ֱ��education strand of the project, led by Dr Linda Fisher, is part of a large-scale and far-reaching language sciences research programme, Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (MEITS) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Working with six secondary schools in the eastern region and another in London, Fisher’s team is tracking the academic performance of 2,000 pupils over two years, including monolingual learners studying a second language and multilingual learners adding a further language in the classroom.

Together with teachers, Fisher and colleagues have devised and trialled a package of teaching materials, which begin by encouraging students to recognise that their understanding of dialects, slang, emojis and even the most basic foreign language ability all represent a form of multilingualism.

“ ̽��ֱ��main idea is to see whether we can we offer young people the agency to develop a multilingual identity if they so wish and to see what the impacts of that are,” Fisher says. ̽��ֱ��results have been positive. “Reflecting on language learning was not only enjoyable for students but also made them more open minded, more aware of the place of language in the world and more inclined to be engaged with language learning in the classroom.”

Many students involved in the project reported a change in attitude, seeing languages more as a vital life skill than just another subject to struggle with at school. “I used to think languages only help on holiday,” said one. “Now I think languages adapt your brain and help you understand different cultures.”

“Practical, and real, and of use to schools”

For the academics, meanwhile, all of these projects are creating a model for boosting the chances of research findings making the journey from concept to coalface and having a real impact on school practice.

This level of collaboration between academics and schools is fundamental to the success of the projects, and yet is surprisingly unusual and should not be taken for granted says McLellan: “Whenever I talk about SUPER in other contexts, people are always interested in how we manage to do it because schools and universities often have different agendas, timescales and ideas over what constitutes research.

“ ̽��ֱ��projects work because schools in our region, which is very diverse, want to work with us. This is not just pie in the sky, ivory tower stuff: it is practical, and real, and of use to schools. We’ve broken down the artificial walls: we’re out there.”

Researchers in Cambridge’s Faculty of Education are working with teachers to improve the experience of learning in the East of England – and boost pupils’ life chances.

̽��ֱ��projects work because schools in our region, which is very diverse, want to work with us. This is not just pie in the sky, ivory tower stuff: it is practical, and real, and of use to schools. We’ve broken down the artificial walls: we’re out there

Ros McLellan

Yes