Open Online Series Uses XR Technology to Take Healthcare Learners to the Top

Mindy Arbaugh, Content Specialist

You’ve joined a climbing expedition to summit the world’s tallest mountain. The team is already down a member while another is struggling with altitude sickness, and there is some nasty weather ahead as the group reaches Camp 3. 

As a learner in the Leadership for Healthcare Professionals open online course series, you watch this scenario unfold in an elaborate video production. The climbers (played by University of Michigan faculty, staff, and a student), huddle together in a simulated Mount Everest camp, with a backdrop of bright yellow and red tents, howling winds, and snow-covered boulders. 

The team discusses the situation and options, then the decision goes to you – do you remain with the sick teammate, or press ahead to the peak? How the video proceeds depends on your choice. It’s an unfamiliar scenario for most, but the lesson within it is universal: How do we make tough decisions when under stress?

For longtime School of Nursing faculty members Michelle Aebersold and Barbara Medvec, they know that healthcare workers navigate challenging and unexpected circumstances on a daily basis, so a standard lecture series on leadership wasn’t the best way to serve their students. 

“Nurses are innovators by their nature, because you don’t always have everything at your fingertips,” said Medvec, a clinical associate professor at the School of Nursing. “So they critically think. They look at the whole patient, the whole situation, and how they can get things done innovatively.” 

Engaged Learning Benefits Healthcare Learners

Medvec and Aebersold, a School of Nursing clinical professor and clinical associate professor in the School of Information, wanted their first massive open online course (MOOC) series to mirror their learners’ innovative nature. 

The Leadership for Healthcare Professionals series features multiple immersive activities designed to teach critical thinking, effective communication, and quality improvement to healthcare workers who want to grow their leadership skills. 

Medvec and Aebersold have long used simulations in their teaching. They point to research and experience that shows students, especially those working in healthcare, learn more effectively when immersed in an activity.

“Simulation is kind of a sweet spot for us, because you can use immersive technology and you’re in the situation,” said Medvec. “You can practice how you’re going to react in that situation, and navigate that in a way that is highly professional, highly competent, and comfortable.”

Knowing the many benefits of engaged learning, such as enhanced retention, critical thinking, and practicing skills in a controlled environment, Medvec and Aebersold created a MOOC offering an unusually high number of activities for their healthcare learners.

The Everest lesson is part of the first course in a three-course series covering leadership principles, strategy and innovation, and quality improvement and decision-making. Not all of the courses’ immersive experiences are of the same scale, but Medvec and Aebersold made sure that even the smallest activities provided impactful lessons. 

“When we look at good patient care, learning through rote memorization is not the best way to do it,” Aebersold said. “But engaged learning is.”

Center Collaboration Creates Everest Camp

Aebersold and Medvec reached out to the center to help recreate an Everest expedition, an activity they have used in residential classes. 

Tapping into the center’s expertise in extended reality (XR) and virtual production, with some creative use of generative AI to construct the mountain backdrop, they were able to create a unique and immersive experience for learners. 

Both Medvec and Aebersold acknowledge it can be daunting to design simulations and virtual activities rather than familiar, traditional methods of teaching. However, they found they were able to realize their vision faster in collaboration with the center team, with engaging scenarios that connect learners to the course material better than a standard lecture series. 

“When you look at where they were able to help us go, it’s pretty darn amazing,” Medvec said. 

Simulations Provide Safe Space to Learn

The instructors wanted to offer a number of simulations and activities for the online learners to not only drive home key leadership lessons, but also to meet the demand of nurses and healthcare workers who want impactful instruction that fits into a busy schedule.

“I think our learners are a little bit more discerning,” Aebersold said. "They have a hunger for knowledge and want to get into some of these fields, but don’t have access or the ability to do a whole master’s program.”

Engaged learning is not only a dynamic way to learn, but also allows students to apply newfound knowledge in a safe setting, where they can make mistakes and learn from those experiences. 

For example, in the second course learners are tasked with redesigning a hospital room to better serve patients and their families. It’s an exercise that wouldn’t be possible in real life, but using an interactive experience students can test different layouts and features, then walk around a virtual reality simulation of the hospital room to see if the elements meet their goals. 

“We learn by doing and the best ways we learn oftentimes are through the mistakes we make,” Aebersold said. 

Tailoring the course to busy healthcare professionals also means challenging them in familiar ways. 

The third course of the series includes an activity using a classic toy, Mr. Potato Head. In the scenario, nine members of Mr. Potato Head’s family are involved in a bus accident, with body parts scattered everywhere. Trauma team members have to reassemble as many potatoes as possible in five minutes. 

It’s a lesson incorporating Lean or Six Sigma methodologies, which strive to reduce waste and improve efficiency and accuracy. Plus it’s an opportunity for learners to implement those lessons in a familiar, pressure-packed situation.

“So I’ve learned a chunk of information. Now where do I go to practice and apply that information?” Aebersold said. “I’m going to have you do it so that you do some sort of application and reflection on that experience, because that’s how you learn.”

Leadership Lessons Meet Innovation

Over their decades of experience as practitioners and educators, Medvec and Aebersold have seen the importance of leadership. They have witnessed the impacts of poor management and they have watched teams flourish under strong direction. 

It’s a skillset not always covered in clinical instruction, but the importance of learning how to make quick, effective, and accurate decisions has only increased in today’s medical arena. The methods of teaching those lessons are also evolving, and the co-instructors have embraced technology and innovation to meet their students where they are.

“When we are providing them authentic experiences that are what I call real life, they respond better, they learn better, and they integrate that information into their practices much more quickly,” Medvec said. “That’s where the fun is for us, because we get to be translators as educators.”