“Just-in-Time Learning” with FAES

BY DEDRA WRIGHT & MORGAN MERRIMAN, FAES ACADEMIC PROGRAMS INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGNERS
 

Roughly 60 years ago, a group of NIH researchers established FAES to quickly train fellows on specific skills through face-to-face course offerings on the NIH’s Bethesda campus. Over time, our program has extended beyond the NIH community to include partnerships with local degree-granting institutions. Following the trends in higher education, we have transitioned our educational offerings to an online format. As a result, we are excited about the potential to provide rigorous and high-quality educational offerings to the NIH community throughout the United States and around the world.

Based on research and educational trends, eLearning has become a primary method for instruction, offering students autonomy for their learning paths. To build globally competitive skills and knowledge and to meet the requirements of our academic partners, our online courses provide the same level of rigor as accredited institution to ensure synonymous content and transferability. Please find additional information here about our partnerships with several area universities where your FAES credits could count toward completing a degree.

Today, our online courses are supported by instructional designers who focus on employing best teaching and learning practices by optimizing learning technologies. Using this approach, the instructor develops a course based on expert knowledge in their field; however, the student has autonomy for how to acquire the knowledge and how to display their understanding through dynamic learning activities. You will notice that FAES has adopted this approach in our online course offerings—shying away from traditional call and response activities. Many of the courses require: strategizing in groups, creating presentations that extend beyond provided course materials, conversations with peers developing within the same field, etc. Based on feedback provided by our students, we see that they enjoy an engaging experience where they actively apply the skills they are learning each week to assignments for the course, rather than just learning theory.

Hear from our students -

• The coding assignments were very helpful and encouraged independent online learning to be able to complete (BIOF 101 - Introduction to Coding Skills in Python)
• I learn best when I'm applying the learning matter to something, so the assignments were the most enjoyable and informative part of the course for me. (BIOF 309 - Introduction to Python)
• The organization of ideas in this course was very helpful for my learning. Content was taught in the context of thinking about which statistical test to use in a given situation, which made it a lot easier for me to understand the appropriateness of when to use a specific test, rather than simply what the test is doing. (STAT 101 - Introduction to Statistics)
• I feel more confident learning and applying immunology in my career. (IMMU 403 - Basic Principles of Immunology and Hypersensitivity)
• The way the instructors related to real lab work and clinical cases, and in general real life situations, made the scientific material easy to learn. (IMMU 403 - Basic Principles of Immunology and Hypersensitivity)