Dementia Care

32 / 40

32 Australian Journal of Dementia Care December 2016/January 2017 Vol 5 No 6
As a world leader in online dementia
education The Wicking Dementia
Research and Education Centre will
play a key role in Dementia Training
Australia (DTA) by producing online
educational content to be used within its
programs.
The Wicking Centre team is poised to
develop a new range of online courses that
will drive dementia literacy on behalf of
DTA, and thereby play a key role in
preparingAustralia to effectively respond
to the escalating need for care and support
to ever increasing numbers of people with
dementia.
Building capacity for care
Since 2012 The Wicking Centre has
established a range of online education
programs in response to urgent
international calls to build capacity for
dementia care. This includes the creation
of a world first Understanding Dementia
(UD) Massive Open Online Course
(MOOC), an innovative Bachelor of
Dementia Care (BDemCare) and, more
recently, the Preventing Dementia MOOC.
Collectively, these courses have opened
educational opportunities for many who
previously had no access to tertiary
education, solidifying the opportunity for
non-traditional students, such as care
workers, to participate within the
university sector.
Wicking Centre online courses have
been successful in reaching out to those for
whom higher education would never have
been an option, successfully engaging a
non-traditional cohort, many of whom are
balancing work or families, and have had
limited post-compulsory education. In this
sense the Wicking Centre programs are
said to be an excellent example of
responding to unmet community
education needs.
Those who participate inWicking
Centre programs don’t fit the average
profile of a university student. Instead
they are largely people who wish to study
part-time and are of a mature age. This
experience ideally situates the Wicking
Centre to develop DTAcourses that meet
the needs of all health professionals and,
importantly, care workers who are
generally at the front-line of delivering
care and support to people with dementia
and their families.
Of note, the majority of Wicking Centre
students have a significant connection
with and investment in dementia-related
care through work, or via personal impact,
which, combined with the innovative
teaching approach, has proven to be a
significant factor in the strong progression
and completion rates. To this end the
Wicking Centre team has implemented a
range of creative and innovative online
learning approaches that engage and
motivate students towards completion.
Online education expertise
The success of this approach is evident in
the fact we have the highest levels of
MOOC completion rates in the world, and
evidence that educational background
does not negatively impact on completion
rates. Indeed, the quality of the Wicking
Centre UDMOOC course has seen it rated
by Class Central in the top 50 MOOCs in
the world (out of 6000) and ranked
number one in the world of health and
medical MOOCs. It now has more than
90,000 people enrolled in 147 countries,
with world-record breaking completion
rates of up to 45%.
Further, in less than four years the
BDemCare has become the fourth largest
course at the University of Tasmania, and
incorporates a successful and consistent
articulation pathway for an accompanying
UDMOOC. Importantly, the Wicking
Centre undergraduate student body
stretches across every State and Territory
of Australia.
Acore part of this success has involved
tackling the anonymity of studying online
with thousands of others through the
facilitation of explicit peer networks,
linking research in dementia to
educational programs, and derived big
data that drives further research to
improve educational content and
approaches.
These strategies will be applied to the
online programs developed on behalf of
DTAand will ensure they are
characterised by high-quality content that
is readily accessible.
For more information about the planned
online dementia courses or other DTA
programs go to:
or
email
New online dementia courses
in the pipeline for DTA
The team who created the world’s first dementia MOOC will develop a new range
of online courses for DTA, explains Professor Andrew Robinson, Director
Dementia Training Australia and Co-Director Wicking Dementia Research and
Education Centre, University of Tasmania
The Wicking Centre’s online courses have opened educational opportunities for many who
previously had no access to tertiary education, such as care workers, to participate within
the university sector