ABSTRACT
Site visits are a key pedagogical tool within natural science and geographical education. Site visits provide an interactive experience to enable learning through the exposure to a real-world spatio-temporal environment. COVID-19 restrictions required the development of a virtual site visit for a landscape ecology course in North America. In this study, a series of digital tools were coordinated to deliver site visit information focusing on multi-sensory, multi-scalar, and multi-media information based on Kolb's experiential learning model, particularly Step 1, the concrete experience. This research explored student's perceptions and opinions of the digital tools provided to complete their ecological restoration management assignment and their effectiveness and usability. 4th year natural resource and environmental science students (n=52) reported predominately positive attitudes towards the use of the virtual site visit. Though students did not prefer the virtual site visit over a physical site visit, they noted that the virtual site visit digital tools did provide the same information as a site visit and that they felt they were able to understand all aspects of the physical site through the virtual site visit tools provided, particularly through the digital photographs and the 360-degree virtual reality imagery. Successful student assignments illustrated experiential learning outcomes were met.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: This wisdom of experience commentary, from peer academic reviewers serving on accreditation teams, will discuss benefits and challenges of international and national virtual accreditation visits (VAVs) using a "What? So What? Now What?" reflective model. DESCRIPTION: Onsite accreditation reviews for health professional education programs require investments in time, effort, and money to maintain program alignment with accreditation standards and continuously generate quality practitioners. When COVID-19 entered the accreditation world, reviewers had to pivot modalities to a VAV format. ANALYSIS/INTERPRETATION: Adaptation and expectations of VAVs present several challenges. Barriers and advantages will be discussed as well as implications for the future. While medical and pharmacy education standardization has long been established, the authors propose national and international accrediting bodies will utilize the ingenuity of emergency COVID-19-driven onsite accreditation alternatives to develop protocols for novel accreditation methodology. CONCLUSIONS: Whether the continued mutation of COVID-19 prevents the return to previous accreditation visits or not, the experiences gained from the emergency-driven VAV, can inform and enrich accrediting bodies knowledge, theories, and practices of future VAVs. IMPLICATIONS: Higher-education institutions, accreditation bodies, and government entities will use experiences during COVID-19 to transform and improve academic requirements and future practices. Even if there is a full return to onsite reviews, such guidelines or improved versions of them can be applied to situations where immobility or restricted mobility is an issue, such as in illness, pregnancy, travel, war, etc. It is crucial for educators and accrediting bodies to evolve as we navigate these unprecedented times.