Iranian Journal of Medical Education

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Introduction: Clinical education is one of the most important and crucial parts of health science education. Successful clinical education needs to adopt effective approaches that are based on up to date knowledge, clients’ and patients’ needs. Therefore, it can prepare the learners for learning. This study aimed to introduce some new approaches in clinical education. Methods: In this review study, data gathering was done by searching electronic resources including Google search engine and scientific database as well as hand searching of library resources. Results: So far, there have been several studies in the field of clinical education. Numerous approaches adopted or suggested by clinical education policy -makers to improve clinical competency of the learners of health sciences. This literature review has tried to introduce and discuss briefly some effective approaches including: 1) planned clinical experience, 2) dedicated education units and 3) integrating nursing process and problem solving. Conclusion: It is worthwhile for the clinical education programs to provide medical sciences learners with directed opportunities through which they can overcome their stress emerged from working in real clinical environment and apply their knowledge in the clinical practices.

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Introduction: The purpose of teaching is learning, and learning is related to learning theories. These theories describe and explain how people learn. According to various experts' opinion about learning, many theories emerged. The paper reviewed three major approaches include behaviorism, cognitive and constructive learning and its educational applications in medical science. Methods: this paper review English articles selected from Medline and Eric databases and Persian articles from Medlib, Magiran databases between 1990 and 2011. Results: The major applications of each of these learning theories in medical education can be mentioned as following. (a) Behaviorism: determining behavioral goals, computer based training, competency-based education, mastery learning, computer based simulation, (b) cognitive learning theories: advanced organization, concept maps, a community oriented medicine, learning from observation, and (c) constructivism: student-centered learning, problem-based learning, cognitive training, and reflective writing. In addition, basic features in each of these theories are described in a table. Conclusion: learning theories are not complete. Each emphasize on specific type of learning, so it is best for teachers to be familiar with all of them. Behaviorism in general is suitable for teaching new skills, cognitivism is appropriate for teaching critical thinking, clinical thinking, self - centered learning and productive life, and finally constructivism is proper for teaching problem solving skills, clinical decision making and communication skills .

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Introduction: Clinical supervision, as a mechanism for promoting knowledge and professional skills of nurses, is a core activity in nursing practice. To use clinical supervision in nursing education, it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of definitions and models. This paper explains the role and models of clinical supervision in nursing education. Methods: This study is a narrative review of the literature. It was conducted through Internet search in Pubmed and Science direct & Scopus. Using supervision nursing education, nursing administration, and supervisory as the key words, only English papers were searched for. Finally 47 articles, books and Persian article in the field of clinical supervision were reviewed. Results: Based on the literature review, clinical supervision is a continuous & systematic process through it nurses get advice from their supervisors. They practically review, maintain, and develop skills, knowledge, and standards of care. It helps to identify educational needs of nurses, which in turn, helps to understand the strengths and weaknesses of teaching and learning in order to promote purposeful learning in nurses. Conclusion: Findings show clinical supervision is a formal process. it has supportive and educational potential for nursing education. This can help last year nursing students and especially during the start-up work.

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Introduction: Web 2.0 facilitates communication, secures knowledge sharing and user-centered design. Ease of cooperation and collaboration, user participation in content production, ease of use and rich content are factors that have led to increasing use of web 2.0. The purpose of this study was to review common Web 2.0 tools and their applications in medical education.
Methods: This review study was performed using the keywords medical education and Web 2.0 and searching through databases of Scopus, PubMed, Web of Knowledge, Science direct, Sage, Magiran, Noormags, SID, and Civilica for articles published from 2005 to 2016.
Results: First, 216 Persian and English articles were found based on the titles. After removing the duplicates (83 articles) and reviewing the abstracts and full texts and considering the inclusion criteria, 1 Persian and 17 English articles were selected. After reviewing the articles on Web 2.0 in medical education, the tools and their uses, as mentioned in these studies, such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks, social tagging networks, RSS and Mashups were surveyed.
Conclusion: New and emerging uses of technologies highlight the importance of active knowledge production for improving teaching and learning which in turn creates a dynamic interaction among different learning sources. Therefore, it is recommended that universities should take the capabilities of Web 2.0 into account when reviewing educational programs.

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Letter To Editor