Ang Davies
Ang Davies is a Professor of Clinical Bioinformatics and Healthcare Science Education at The University of Manchester with experience of developing and leading programmes in these areas
Location The University of Manchester
Activity
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@DrSumanTari you might find this a useful conference to join to keep up to speed with technologies and learning design: https://altc.alt.ac.uk/2020/
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@KyllePulmones you might find some of these resources helpful too: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/help-children-with-send-continue-their-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19
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@titilayoogunwolu if safeguarding allows you could ask your students to send in a recording of themselves explaining what they have been learning about
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@RosWoodhouse if you are using a virtual learning environment most allow you to create small groups - eg BB collaborate - also you could use the breakout room function of zoom ? The key will be to manage expectations - clear guidelines out lining the task you've set - also if you will be popping into the group and when they should be attending. - You also need...
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@SilvinaAltamirano theres always a balance with this one - maybe define thse sessions where its important and those where its not so critical - also maybe if there's capacity you can do some short check-ins with individuals or smaller groups to see how they're doing with the camera on. I know I've started turning my own camera off quite a bit - too exhausting...
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@AhmadJawadOsmani it depends whether you would like them to be formative or summative - if formative you could include interactive quizzes in your materials - tools like Nearpod help to do this.
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@FionaCampbell In our experience the students tend to pick their own medium for this - a big question you need to ask yourself is do you want to be part of this chat or is it to encourage the development or a network amongst them? Options that have worked well for my students are slack and whatsapp (but we have not participated in them).You may choose to use...
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@PrimroseManyozo this is a difficult problem in our current world - I do know if you have other ways to engage with them eg making printed versions of materials available or even some audio content. It might be worht having some conversations regarding what exactly they dislike - perhaps they need a bigger range of types of activity - even for our University...
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@ShahinaP @rajeshkumarA it depends on your age group but you could consider having class reps that you convene is some kind of forum - this has worked well for us you just not be clear that you're looking for what's worked both well and not so well!!
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@RachelJones really good point - making choices now that will enhance your teaching post-COVID will be time well spent
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@AngielynDianeA.Rivas you could also consider using tools like slack or getting them to co-create something such as a wiki about something you want them to research, or record a short reflective presentation on something you want them to look into - then use this to scaffold your next session so you are showing them that you're reaction to what they've...
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@FrancescaSeminara platforms are important but really first think about what you want to achieve and what you want your students to get out of the experience and work back from there - it might be that actually quite a simple tech solution will be appropriate. The key thing is take your students along with you - make sure they are invested in the choices that you make.
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likewise @DianaLaurillard we've found out typically more introverted sets of students actually become very vocal in discussions - one thing we did was to include participation in the discussion boards as part of our assessment strategy in our units and give them a really clear rubric on how we'll be expecting them to be contributing eg building on other...
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@MohammedYassinMohammedAbasha'ar we've transitioned to online teaching for our large computer science teaching for group work - with 70 students - using our virtual learning environement - we split them into small groupsand all students are in present mofe ad they can use vodeo chat and share there screens and tutors drop into those meetings at pre-defined...
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@JessicaD.Villanueva-Peyraube you could also consider asking a colleague to join one of your sessions online so you get some peer-to-peer feedback too?
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@HannahTyreman thanks for sharing - personally as a parent of three and educator - it is an insightful experience to see how schools are approaching things - time is very pressured in our house with two full-time working at home parents, but I know my own children just value that you are taking an interest in what they plan to do and then what they have done...
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@ZosimaDamasco not sure of the age of your students - but there's a great opportunity for co-creation here - involve the students in the choices that you are making and they are more likely to engage with the learning experience that you produce
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Completely agree @LauraGiles its an opportunity for thinking about how we structure our education differently - people might find the ABC toolkit useful to help them in the design process: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/case-studies/2018/jun/designing-programmes-and-modules-abc-curriculum-design - we've followed the story-boarding approach and its...
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For anyone needing to teach programming or statistics you might find this article useful by my colleague Fran Hooley on how we've used Jupyter notebooks, GitHub and slack to deliver an immersive online course unit: https://medium.com/i3hs-hub/embedding-skills-for-a-new-profession-by-teaching-programming-in-an-immersive-and-authentic-ade0122108fe
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@SugeyPaucar I've just found this website from the UK government which relates to supporting children with special educational needs and looks to have a lot of suggested resources: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/help-children-with-send-continue-their-education-during-coronavirus-covid-19
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@GillySalmon as you say lots to cover here - a colleague found this paper this week - its written with higher education in mind but I think they discuss a lot that is common to all education https://psyarxiv.com/qdh25
also this guide is very helpful - though they use Moodle but most of their guiding principles will translate to any platform:... -
Ang Davies replied to Manjima Manilal
@ManjimaManilal perhaps you could think about ways the students can submit their assignments back to you and set some clear expectations? Speaking as a busy home-working parent I know just making sure my kids are doing home-learning is a big task so also doing the marking too would be too much! Good luck
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Ang Davies replied to Sarah-Jane Corr
@Sarah-JaneCorr Thats sounds great - again I know in our house the children are really missing the feedback loop - they're diligent but they need some reinforcement that what they are doing or focusing on is right
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Ang Davies replied to Nisreen Hassan
our teachers have been uploading recordings of them reading a story to dojo but I suspect it will only taken quite small recordings as there were a lot of them - but again enjoyed in our house!
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Ang Davies replied to Sherly McLoughlin
@LynnS I think interactive online activities are also useful as many parents will not have access to printers during this time - I know in our house squeebles is popular for timetables!
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Ang Davies replied to Ramana Koppula
@RamanaKoppula for building your own quiz you could look at dropping some slides into Nearpod (free access) and you can add quizzes and polls and even get students to draw pictures and it can be used synchronously or asycrhonously: https://nearpod.com/coronavirus
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Ang Davies replied to Nino Baluashvili
@NinoBaluashvili - I like you're support option via messenger first - this is a really good idea to make sure everyone has the tech set-up. Test lesson will be important too as there will undoubtedly be issues with audio and also let them know your rules of engagement (eg when to mute/unmute!) I believe you can re-set another meeting - also if this is an...
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Ang Davies replied to Julie Long
@JulieLong great idea - it'd be interesting to know the size of the groups you're teaching - but certainly this approach has worked well for groups of up to 70 in our university - some things to think about are setting expectations eg how long they should be online for and when you will pop into their group.
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Ang Davies replied to Janet Andrea Salvatierra
@JanetAndreaSalvatierra looks like an interesting solution certainly they're good for making presentations too - is it free for creating video content?
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Ang Davies replied to Anne D
@AnneD - great idea always good to include some reflect practice for your students and at this time it will also help you to quickly assess what is working well for them
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Ang Davies replied to Natali Keme Tummala
@NataliKemeTummala you can also record on zoom if you have the permission of everyone involved - its a useful feature and then you can post the recording on your Virtual learning environment so they can catch up at a later date these videos by Russell Stannard have some great tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JPtzacTACI
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Ang Davies replied to Jenni Kuroski
@JenniKuroski attendence is a hard one but then in face to face not everyone will attend so perhaps don't take this too hard. If you're recording them they might access them at a later date. Making attendance to online seminars mandatory is very challenging given the breadth of difficulties that students will be faced with - especially if any are international...
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@MarieliGdelaTorreMooney completely agree - we need to be agile in our approaches and listen to our students - where you can involve them and co-create their learning journey
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Ang Davies replied to Karen Hudson
@KarenHudson sounds like you've done really well given the difficult circumstances for many of your students (mine are also all in healthcare so I appreciate your difficulties). I think you make a good point regarding reinforcement and giving the students confidence in their learning journey by providing the quizzes and questions (our students often ask us for...
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Ang Davies replied to Farheen Naz
@FarheenNaz not sure of your age-group but could you set them up in small groups - so they can do peer-to-peer support and also learn and share with each other (this might also release some of the pressure form you too?)
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Ang Davies replied to Aileen Lebrocquy
@AileenLebrocquy sounds like you set yourself a high bar - maybe consider the first session as literally a walk-through of the tech you're expecting them to use - for many this is more dauting than the learning itself, and consider producing a how to on the tech you're expecting them to use (common pitfalls such as lack of sound/video/how to share screen -...
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Ang Davies replied to Abby Du Plessis
@AbbyDuPlessis I think you're going in the right direction keeping those contact points regular and letting the students know when you're available is really critical during rapid transition such as this. As a parent of a 3rd grade aged child I am sure you are right and the kids are often more technically competent than a lot of their parents - so perhaps keep...
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Ang Davies replied to Agnes Anderson
@AgnesAnderson I think this is a really good point that for some students guidance on how long they should be spending on online learning can be really valuable, otherwise again without the regular check-ins of face to face teaching anxiety can build up
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Ang Davies replied to Jill P
@JillP I think this will really change students' expectations from what they expect from online learning in the future but also how we will deliver our programmes
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Ang Davies replied to Kate Cowin
@KateCowin depending on the age of your students you can also be creative and do some co-creation - how would your students like the interaction/feedback loop to work with you?
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Ang Davies replied to Becky Vignoles
@BeckyVignoles It is a great idea to write a more generalised feedback post that you can send to all students of common miscomprehensions/areas for improvement - otherwise with larger numbers personalised feedback can become unwieldy - in these challenging times we need to come up creative economical solutions
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Ang Davies replied to Michael Dolan
@MichaelDolan if you use the advanced setting in Zoom you can ensure each meeting has a unique ID and also a password and add more restrictions, we've used GotoMeetings for a live webinar (but a license is required)
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Ang Davies replied to Ayesa Mercado
@AyesaMercado remember also to include some time for talking through the tech and tools as you are introducing it - sometimes it can be as overwhelming for the students as it is for us
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Ang Davies replied to Graham Price
@GrahamPrice sounds pretty comprehensive you could also make i very clear to your students at what times you'll be available online for any real-time question answering (that way you might be able to reduce repetition too)
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Ang Davies replied to Marieta Jansen van Vuuren
@MarietaJansenvanVuuren in my experience if you can streamline the numbers of places your students need to look for information especially during such a drastic transition period it will reduce their anxiety - keep things as simple as you can on the communications front
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@AndyWatts but maybe their parents would - we're all looking for alternate ways to keep our children entertained so maybe work out a communication system that loops them in to - most homework apps can give parental and child control?
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@OlgaGlushchenko quite agree as a working (from home!) parent its very hard to monitor that younger children are doing their homework - so devising ways to keep them engaged and factoring this in would be useful
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@ChiaraPapetti if I was considering pastoral teaching I would be touching base with my students to check in on their well-being - its very strange and uncertain times both for us and them - so making sure they know who they can contact if they are experiencing any kind of worry or anxiety is very helpful for them
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@JessicaSearle good luck sounds good
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@AnneFrancis building a community of practice is really important - not sure of the age of your students but my daughter is using : https://houseparty.com/ to do homework with her friends which seems to work well (or at least that's what she says shes doing!)
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@DenisFischbacher-Smith great idea Denis - not sure how we do it but I'd love to see some examples?
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@BarisB I think there is a big problem with information overload - I'm certainly seeing it form my organisation - the email traffic is overwhelming! Therefore I'd definitely recommend coming up with a communications plan - and let the students know when you will be available for more directed support - good luck!
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@ClaireParr good point Claire - zoom may not be allowed for safeguarding issues with the camera - I'm sure the councils will give guidance on this soon
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@CaminoLinares-Rivas you can also record which is useful if you have permissions set up and for anyone that is not able to join the "live" session: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362473-Local-Recording
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@RicardoRosales completely agree there are loads of resources - I'm currently dealing with the homeschooling challenge like many of you, which is interesting when I'm normally used to delivering it @University of Manchester, but I think the biggest thing that would help parents is a bit of curation from the educators to support parent home-schoolers - its on...
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Ang Davies replied to Rishi George
I'll flag with our partner at FL
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Ang Davies replied to Michal Pruski
Our Clinical Bioinformaticians working in the NHS are already implementing cloud storage and analysis in the cloud for genomic data - so its already coming - but something we could look at including for the future
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Ang Davies replied to Bernard Gibbon
@BernardGibbon Not sure I follow your point here Bernard? - I've tried to address this in the discussion earlier though?
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Ang Davies replied to Chris Tack
@ChrisTack I think this is a very good point - I think we need more focus on developing specialist career routes for clinicians and other allied health professionals - I came across this the other day - so the Royal Colleges are obviously thinking about it - but it needs much more of a developed curriculum in my view - also talking to a colleague recently that...
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@MichalPruski I think this is an interesting point and underpins the idea of trying to develop a shared language and understanding - so where for eg we talk about structure versus unstructured data everyone understands the issues and what can and more importantly cannot be done with it.
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@JesusRogel-Salazar I think this is a fair point - you could say its a new name for MDTs - but I think it aims to go further than that and actually think a little outside of the box - eg we're working with a hospital where we have embedded a data scientist in the hospital team who are looking at whether ML can support some decision making, working with...
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Ang Davies replied to Nilesh Sheth
@HarrietLeyland and if its genomic data - it quite quickly can become identifiable
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Ang Davies replied to Jesus Rogel-Salazar
@JesusRogel-Salazar thanks Jesus - I think this is a very good comparison to organ donation - and what health related schemes/registers we should all be automatically opted into - especially in the context of the NHS where we receive "free" healthcare - is it therefore acceptable that we should donate our data to improve outcomes for others in the future?
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@MarkKenny thanks for your points Mark - my sense is to really embrace digital technologies in healthcare we are going to need a lot more companies with expertise in the regulatory/registration aspsects ( whole minefield in its own right)- particularly for anything involving machine learning. I think we also need more training like this to help people to ask...
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Ang Davies replied to Hannah Wood
What about if that private company uses it to make more effective safer medicines? Worth looking at CPRD that already collated data from GP surgeries and this can be accessed by private companies https://www.cprd.com/
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@SulaO'Duffy this was the premise of an initiative called care.data a few years ago that sadly got scrapped ironically due to poor public engagement
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@GurkaranSamra good spot indeed it should!
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@HannahWood completely agree my GPs booking system is a prime example of how not to engage the user! We need to co-create digital technologies with patients and service users and continually evaluate
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Thanks for sharing @VictoriaF theres also some great work from our colleagues at UoM applying deep learning to look at breast density in mammograms https://doi.org/10.1117/1.jmi.6.3.031405
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Great questions that we’ll come on to and a quick note digihealth rewired is on tomorrow you can follow on Twitter #DHRewired20 hoping they’ll be lots of discussions on this topic and AI
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Thanks @LizJordan for sharing it’s a really useful article - setting the scene for applications in clinical genetics for example
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Ang Davies replied to Ioannis Argyridis
Thanks @IoannisArgyridis we’ll present a couple of governance frameworks in week 4 too and various advisory bodies
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Ang Davies replied to Anthony Rimmer
Thanks @AnthonyRimmer for sharing we’ll be revisiting this in week 4 for sure
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Ang Davies replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]
@RadyrC there are other ways of thinking about this for orphan drug development - such as repurposing of exisiting drugs that are already on the market for treating common disorders you can read more about this here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1517/21678707.2013.796883
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@JudyBrown this is a very good point - global sharing ofv ariant and phenotype data through one portal should be something the community aspires towards but the coordination effort required is a different issue
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thanks Phil - we'll get this sorted
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HI Kevin - actually its the Sequence Alignment Files that are large - VCFs are pretty small - but a gene panel can generate 100s of variants so we need to reduce the number that we can look at in much more detail
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Sevtap consent is key here and is an interesting point particularly if we have whole exome or genome data. Over time we may amass sufficient evidence to warrant inclusion or testing of an additional gene - thus its key that this is explained in the consent process and the patient can then decide if they would wish to be re-contacted in this situation
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Thanks Kevin - certainly true in a research setting - but in the clinic a proven association to the disease or phenotype is generally needed before a gene would be analysed for the presence of a variant
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@BhartiMittal thanks Bharti great explanation
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Ang Davies replied to Bharti Mittal
lots of good points here Bharti and there's definitely still a number of phenotypically well defined disorders that would be tested for by a single gene test - eg F508 cystic fibrosis deletion
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great points here from the patients' perspectives of why this is so important - and thanks for the glossary tip - good point we will add that one
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HI Thomas we don't have time sadly to go into detail on genetics but the St George's MOOC on the FL platform covers this in more detail if you like this style of learning
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Ang Davies replied to Thomas Toseland
@ThomasToseland you might also wish to look at the fantastic range of courses offeed by https://software-carpentry.org/
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Ang Davies replied to Sevtap Savas
Dear Sevtap - here's a nice article covering some of controversies and benefits of data sharing : https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/123/1/35/4080201
Be interesting to see what others make of this?
best wishes
Ang -
Ang Davies replied to John Page
Hi John, glad you've enjoyed it - go for it more details to follow from us on our new Distance Learning Clinical Bioinformatics course that will be launching in spring 2019!
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Ang Davies replied to Julie Baartz
Thanks Julie and thanks for all of your discussion
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Ang Davies replied to Nirvana Tuladhar
Thanks Nirvana and thanks for all your contributions
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Ang Davies replied to Renate R
glad you enjoyed the course Renate
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Ang Davies replied to Jan Groh
HI Jan, glad we've stoked your interest - go for it! Ang
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Ang Davies replied to Nicola James
please feel free to provide any feedback in the post course survey or here as to how we might improve Nicola
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Variants in non-coding regions can also cause frameshifts and processes such as non-sense mediated decay, so sometimes they can be important to also look at if as Idoia says nothing has been found in coding regions
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I think another points here around re-analysis of data following new associations is the sheer resource implications this involves - in terms of revisiting all relevant cases - what are your thoughts?
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@NicolaJames good point Nicola
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HI Ruth I think this point related more to finding new genes with sufficient association with the phenotype that they would warrant inclusion within a gene panel, rather than to IFs.
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Ang Davies replied to Julie Baartz
@JulieBaartz great summary Julie - worth pointing out too that whilst we're not quite there yet WGS is giving us the ability to look at other sources of variation such as CNVs and large insertions/deletions that might span intron/exon boundaries
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Ang Davies replied to Allison Gardner
good points Allison and we will come on to more of the ethics and governance next week
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Ang Davies replied to Julie Baartz
Particularly valid points Julie especially when considering patients with ultra-rare conditions where diagnosis relies on global data sharing
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Galaxy is a very user-friendly non command line interface that allows you to develop an NGS workflow and analyse variants to get started check out their tutorial: https://galaxyproject.org/tutorials/g101/
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Thanks Maria we're glad you're enjoying the course