Monica Abrudan
Monica Abrudan is a Training Development Lead in the Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance, at University of Oxford, where she develops courses in genomics and bioinformatics.
Location United Kingdom
Activity
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Good points, Simon! This is a 3h module, that was part of a 6 day course. The course was free to attend, but limited to a small number of participants.
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Hi Simon, there are several ways of making your online lectures more interactive, as Ben showed in his course. Other popular options are https://www.mentimeter.com/ or https://kahoot.com/
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Hi Franziska, thank you for your answer! there are several other competency frameworks in use, on top of the ones mentioned in the text above. Check also this one: Core competencies in applied infectious disease epidemiology in Europe (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/core-competencies-applied-infectious-disease-epidemiology-europe)
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Hi Simon, thank you for your answer. In education context, evaluation is different from assessment. You can use a CF to help you in your course assessment, as well as in the course evaluation. In terms of course evaluation, by aligning program objectives with the competencies in the framework, you can evaluate whether the educational offering effectively...
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Hi Simon, having an unprepared trainer is definitely a setback !
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Hi Taiwo, how could you overcome these problems? Would pre-recording some sessions and allowing students to download content be an option?
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Hi Corrado, objectives are about the intentions behind the teaching process, while learning outcomes are about what the student achieves through that process. The objectives listed above might be better listed under learning outcomes. As a side comment (from another genomic epidemiologist), you might also want to take a look at NCBI pathogen detection website,...
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Hi Franziska, good to hear about your plans. If you work on small datasets, the lack of hard skills to analyse data could be overcome with using web based tools, or visual pipelines such as Galaxy. There is a huge need to equip healthcare professionals with skills to interpret genomic results - are you also considering creating training for this part of the...
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Hi James, that sounds very interesting. Have you thought of finding alternatives to command line tools with web based tools?
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Hi Corrado, that sounds very interesting. Which web-based bacterial genomic data analysis tool do you have in mind?
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There is a huge need for training on genomics for non-genomics specialists. Think how might be able to use existing training materials, or, if you create new ones, how you might want to share with others afterwards.
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Hi Simon, that sounds good, and very ambitious. How many teaching / training hours in total? I look forward to reading your course design in week 3
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Monica Abrudan replied to Kumbirai Mandava
Educating patients and healthcare providers should be a top priority. Welcome to the course!
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Monica Abrudan replied to Isabella Polanco
Hi Isabella, welcome to the course. Your Masters topic sounds very familiar. Somebody in my PhD was also studying a similar system. I hope you enjoy the TtT and I look forward to learning about your course design in Week 3
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Monica Abrudan replied to Michael C
Hello, Michael, welcome to the course
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Hello, Julius. Hope you enjoy the course
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Monica Abrudan replied to Nada Maalouf
Welcome, Nada! We look forward to hearing more about your training and teaching plans
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Welcome, Gladys. I hope you will enjoy the course to the end.
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Monica Abrudan replied to Alaa Masri
Welcome, Alaa! Training and teaching others are very valuable skills. I hope you enjoy the course.
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Hi Camila, welcome to the course! Hope you have a good experience and I look forward to seeing your project in week 3.
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What about assessing learners' interests?
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Perhaps the trainer should have first made sure that everyone was on a similar level before the start of the course. Or, perhaps, they could have handed in some pre-course reading, to help learners with the new terminology. What do you think?
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I agree, that is always difficult! We talked about training needs assessment and also about Formative Assessment in Week 1, Steps 1.19 and 1.20 - I hope you found that information useful for the future.
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You are right, we also miss face to face courses. However, as we practice virtual learning, training and teaching, we gather more evidence on which educational methods are more effective online. Eventually, online communication will improve and become more efficient.
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These are all good topics. Which one will you choose for the Week 3 assignment ?
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I hope you get inspiration from our TtT course.
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Perfect timing!
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Your idea seems quite intriguing. 35 min is quite a short interval! Will of offer pre- and post- course learning materials ?
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Having 1:1 conversations sounds like a good strategy, but how do you manage large cohorts of learners?
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What would you ask in the pre-course survey?
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Are you thinking of a formal, marked test?
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Your plan sounds very tidy and organised - we are looking forward to seeing your design in Week 3!
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Monica Abrudan replied to Alan Calder
Knowing how to install certain software programmes is a useful skill on its own. I do believe learners should be shown how to install and run their own software, however, during the course, they should be given very clear instructions on how to do so, in the interest of time!
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Thank you, Stefany, I like how you phrased this: real-life data is not 'perfect data'. Yes, it is important to know how to analyse imperfect data, because often, as scientists, we hardly get perfect data.
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Monica Abrudan made a comment
You probably have some questions about the peer review project in week three – please add them to the responses to this comment so that the educators can help you.
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Monica Abrudan made a comment
You probably have some questions about the peer review project in week three – please add them to the responses to this comment so that the educators can help you!
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@FrancinePerrine-Walker Could you recommend any funders in your country to other people attending the course?
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Thanks for sharing your plan, Iros. Will you need additional trainers to facilitate the small projects?
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@AlanCalder I see. From my work experience, we see a lot of discrepancies between phenotypic speciation vs WGS speciation. It is a good example where WGS performs very well in comparison to other methods, and a course on bacterial identification could motivate learners to continue studying bioinformatics!
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Monica Abrudan made a comment
Question for all: How do you include hands-on exercises in online courses?
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Monica Abrudan replied to Ephrem Mekonnen
Sounds ambitious! I am also looking forward to see your project in Week 3.
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Nice questions, Francine. How would you facilitate communication between field plant pathologists and bioinformaticians? What would each need to learn for the conversation to be meaningful?
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I liked your questions, let me answer some here: in some situations, you can predict phenotypes based on genotypes, without the need of in vitro/in vivo experiments. Also, with bioinformatics, you can study hundreds, thousands, millions of samples at the same time, something that you would not be able to do in experimental work. Bioinformatics results are...
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It is difficult to adapt course materials when you work with large, heterogeneous groups of students. One idea is offer several versions of the course, and group the students according to their interests.
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Thank you, Francine. How would you motivate Masters students (with no previous research work experience) that plant pathogenic nematodes is an interesting topic?
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Thank you, Alan - that sounds like an exciting course! Just as a curiosity, are you planning to compare outcomes of different methods for species identification, such as WGS vs phenotypic assays vs other molecular methods vs Vitek? If so, could you bring experienced professionals with lab and bioinformatics expertise to share their contrasting experience with...
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Thank you Heather, for describing the design of your course. If the trainers are unknown at the moment, is there a plan to ensure that they will meet certain training/teaching standards?
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Thank you for sharing this, Thomas. I would expect students to know the package installation, basic scripting and ability for self-help from a Beginners course in R. This is only a suggestion, but maybe, an Advanced course in R should include some realistic use-case scenarios, or allow students to bring in their own datasets and perform analyses in R on...
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That is a good point, Stefany. If you were to design your course, what methods would you use to assess your learner's previous knowledge?
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Monica Abrudan made a comment
A question to all: How do you organize virtual classes with multiple trainers/helpers? I sense that some of you use breakout rooms, but does this not spoil the flow of the main course? And, without breakout rooms, is there really any need for helpers?
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@ThomasManke Hi Thomas, I re-posted your question and pinned it this post, so that it becomes more visible. Keep an eye on the answers.
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Hi, Danai, good goals and objectives, they are quite ambitious! Here are some additional questions to explore: How many researchers would you plan to train? Is an MSc course enough to train competent researchers on the topic?
Do you have funding for additional training (eg PhD scholarships, exchange programmes, other training courses) that MSc students might... -
Hi Thomas, thank you for sharing your experience. Two follow-up questions on the time constrained course: What feedback did you receive from your learners after "shrinking" the course? And second, did you have to add pre- and post- course learning materials to your course, after shortening it?
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It seems to me that an advantage to not having enough computers to match the demand was that you could keep the classroom size small and perhaps have more interactions between trainers and learners - or is it not the case?
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Thank you for sharing your experience, Alan! I agree with you, training 30 learners online, at once, sounds difficult! How many trainers were there for the 30 learners? How would you change the design of the course, if you were to run it again? From my experience, in the case of large groups, such as yours, it might be a good idea to divide learners into...
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Thank you for sharing, was the course successful? Did students go through the pre-recorded materials? Were they engaged? Did they show up for the live sessions? Are there any downsides to having pre-recorded sessions as opposed to live sessions?
