The Journal of International Experiences

Click this link to go to the very first edition of this journal.  Both Carol Ann and I have articles about our Nepal volunteer experiences in it.

Stories about International Volunteer Experiences

Hope you enjoy it!

I can't believe how many countries are following!

Ireland
Phillipines
Denmark
United Arab Emirates
Hong Kong
Italy
Romania
Russia

Contrasting PBL Tutor Training at PAHS (Nepal) and at the IMP (Canada)

Joan and I delivered a PBL Tutor Training Workshop to faculty in Nepal.  Physicians at Patan Hospital were interested in becoming teaching faculty at PAHS and so we trained 14 of them in PBL.  In an earlier post I discussed this experience a bit...
The residents that we were using as "mock" students did not return the 2nd day, only 4 showed up in the first place when there were supposed to be 8 of them, it was a 16 hour workshop over 2 days while ours is only an 8 hour workshop spread over 2 days etc.

I thought that I would take the time to talk about the differences that we saw.  On Tuesday, April 26 and Thursday, April 28, Joan and I came home to Victoria and delivered a PBL Tutor Training Workshop to faculty here at the IMP in Canada.  It was so great to have these 2 events so close together so that the differences would be obvious.

These are the main things that struck me:

• Everyone showed up on time in Victoria - early in fact!
• There were no cell phones ringing, no answering of cell phones and no one left the room for an extended period to talk on their phone.
• The technology worked and I was not concerned about it.  I also fully expected, and was not disappointed, that there would be power for the length of the workshop!
• Each day was only 4 hours long vs. 8 hours long in Nepal.
• The "mock" students showed up for training, were enthusiastic and talked!
• These same students also showed up the next workshop day!  :)
• We had MUCH more food at our workshop - although it was eaten by staff in the office, it is always excessive. 
• We didn't take photos of the particpants with the Vice-Chancellor and other important faculty members here in Victoria.
• In Nepal, there is a real sense of mourning (from Tuckman's stages of group development) when the group had to disband.  This really interests me thinking about cultural differences.  Is there some reason why the bonds that are formed in groups are stronger in some cultures?
• We had a fun and formal certificate ceremony in Nepal, where the Vice Chancellor handed out certificates to all, including Joan and I, and photos were taken the whole time.

Both workshops were fun and everyone seemed to learn a lot. 

How did I miss this..?

To be fair, I wasn't yet addicted to it.

Nutella Day!

My Birthday

Well, it was my 40th birthday yesterday.  The very fisrt person to wish me happy birthday was a PAHS student!  So sweet!  I wanted to share some photos from our awesome dinner last night at The Keg!  Fantastic food and company!  Ruby's brithday is on the 10th so I think she thought this was for her - she helped me blow out the candles!

PBL in Nepal

I wanted to post these photos that I took of the ground rules that the PAHS students wrote up for their PBL group functioning.  I was struck by how similar they were to ours...despite the cultural differences.  Except, of course, the "SPEAK ENGLISH" rule! 
In PBL, the groups make a set of posted ground rules (or group norms) so that everyone is in agreement about how the group will function - no interrupting, all questions and hypotheses are welcome etc.  It's a necessary thing to do for any small group work and it really helps with group functioning!

Acronyms

I live in a world of acronyms.  I use them all the time and everyone around me uses them.  It can be very convenient, but also aggravating for those who do not know the acronyms.  It sounds like code or a secret language.

So it turns out that I did this, a lot, in my blog!  My apologies!  So here are some acronyms that I will spell out since they are importnat to know:

PAHS - Patan Academy of Health Sciences
UBC - University of British Columbia
IMP - Island Medical Program
PBL -problem based learning

I think that might be it...

Another...

Ukraine!