Digital Rural Healthcare Through MOOCs in Pangasinan, Philippines
Joseph Palis
University of the Philippines
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Peter Sy
University of the Philippines
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Dennis Batangan, MD
Ateneo de Manila University
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Marita Concepcion Guevara, PhD
Ateneo de Manila University
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J.C. Navera
University of the Philippines
MAIN PRESENTER
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Joseph Palis is associate professor in geography at UP Diliman. He teaches cultural geography, countercartographies, violent geographies, and geohumanities. He headed the two Geonarratives Projects that re-center story maps and personal geographies as reflecting individual engagements with space, place and landscape. He is co-editor of the Pivot Series devoted to Geographies of Media from Palgrave Macmillan, as well as co-organiser and co-convener of film geographies at the American Association of Geographers. He currently sits as Director of the UP Third World Studies Center.
This presentation aims to highlight the importance and growing relevance of the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a means of educational outreach that target often-excluded and marginal groups. The intra-institution and multi-disciplinary project investigates the modality of MOOCs among rural health workers in Pangasinan to evaluate efficient, effective, culture-specific, site-situated health care delivery. The inequitable distribution of government health workers spotlights the imperative for continued support for health workers who served rural communities, especially the underserved areas, despite the allure of work abroad. This presentation presents the three stages of project implementation, the design of the MOOC that seeks to situate spatial specifics mindful of cultural contexts, and critical reflections on the various scalar dimensions of the project.
eLearning for Rural Health Workers in the Philippines: MOOCs as Technology Bridges for Capacity Development
Dennis B. Batangan, MD
Ateneo de Manila University
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Marita Concepcion Castro Guevara, PhD
Ateneo de Manila University
Anna Theresa de Guzman, MD
Pangasinan Provincial Hospital
This paper describes how the “Capability to Organize Massive Public Educational Opportunities in Universities of Southeast Asia '' (COMPETEN-SEA) project developed and implemented Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for rural health workers in Pangasinan, Philippines. The project was funded by the European Union Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education (Erasmus+ CBHE) and involved partners from both Southeast Asian and European universities. The Philippine component (Ateneo de Manila University & University of the Philippines-Diliman) produced three MOOCs on health governance in close collaboration with the Provincial Health Office (PHO) of the Pangasinan province. It aims to capacitate rural health workers through MOOCs for their continuing professional development.
The project produced three MOOCs on health governance in close collaboration with the Pangasinan Provincial Health Office (PPHO) and adopted a co-creation and co-management approach. A survey on learners’ readiness among public health workers in Pangasinan was conducted which was followed by a series of consultation. Both of which served as basis for the MOOCs developed. Introduction of MOOCs were done through the Municipal Implementation Review (MIR) sessions of the PPHO while monitoring of participants were done by District Health Nurses.
The co-creation and co-management approach of the project facilitated the development of the MOOCs that responded to the actual needs of target learners and the technology adoption skills they needed to successfully finish MOOCs. As of 31 December 2019, there were at least five hundred (500) learners who completed at least one of the MOOCs.
Tambayoyong Box: MOOCs and OERs Complementation in Rural Philippines
Peter Sy
University of the Philippines
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J.C. Navera
University of the Philippines
There is a lack of quality educational resources in the Philippines and is made especially acute in rural K-12 schools where poor (to zero) Internet connectivity, as well as the lack of teacher training and support, conspire to produce suboptimal educational outcomes and help perpetuate prevailing socio-economic inequalities. One promising solution is Open Educational Resources (OER) that complement commercial learning resources. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) could be offered as part of a basket of solutions. MOOCs, however, remain largely inaccessible from remote schools and are not geared towards addressing context-specific issues of education in rural Philippines.
Responding to both needs (educational resources and teacher training) simultaneously and cost-effectively is non-trivial. OERs have to be comprehensive, relevant, and accessible to both teachers and students in rural areas. MOOCs for rural schools have to be developed and deployed in ways that incentivize teachers, principals, school superintendents, regional directors in relation to target educational outcomes in their own spheres of influence and to their contributions as co-owners and co-managers of the initiative.
Needed is a single platform that provides both OERs and MOOCs in rural areas. Such a platform is the evolved Tambayayong eLibraries which are a means to deploy essential digital resources to schools in remote areas. MOOCs, on the other hand, offer an opportunity for continuing education and training for, among others, rural health workers. The experiences from such otherwise disparate initiatives appear to necessitate a combined edtech service for teachers and students alike in rural K-12 schools.
Re-Assessing Capacity-Building Needs of Healthcare Workers for eHealth and Healthcare Service Delivery
John Paolo C. Dalupang
Ateneo de Manila University
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Dennis B. Batangan, MD
Ateneo de Manila University
Mita Lourdes Angela F. Santiago
Ateneo de Manila University
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Miguel Eduardo KB. Cid
Ateneo de Manila University
The Philippine healthcare services sector is constantly changing due to eHealth technologies, emerging standards of practice among health professions, and the shifting legal landscape for the provision of health services. These developments result to additional challenges for healthcare professionals and service providers in accessing training and education on knowledge and skills reflexive and responsive to the demands of the dynamic Philippine health landscape. Such challenges are more apparent to health professionals practicing in undermanned health institutions and/or in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDA) who cannot afford to leave their posts at work for professional development.
The eHealth Training on Unified Resources Online (eTURO) project seeks to understand these changes and identify the most pressing demands from various healthcare sectors. Through focus group discussions and key informant interviews with various health professionals, the project identified training topics commonly mentioned as needed. It was also found that participants prefer blended over fully online approaches while issues such as internet access, computer skills, and the authentic evaluation of trainings were raised as concerns. The study also identified that stricter implementation of the requirement of continuing professional development (CPD) units for professional license renewal is a primary driver for training demand of health professionals.
In response to these challenges, eTURO is managing an online referral website of locally-produced online trainings for health professionals; a growing library of webinars on health; a module currently in development addressing identified training needs; and longer-term partnerships with partner training institutions in co-producing their eLearning materials.