Who should attend

This course is designed for anyone involved in supporting the development of students and professionals in health and social care, in both clinical and simulated environment.

What you will learn

Learning outcomes

1. Describe the role of feedback and debriefing in supporting learning.
2. Identify the range of settings in which learning conversations occur.
3. Recognise and apply strategies that foster psychological safety for learning conversations.
4. Outline strategies to promote learner-initiated feedback.
5. Critically review approaches/models/frameworks for feedback and debriefing.
6. Demonstrate skills for learner-centred approaches to briefing.
7. Demonstrate skills for a meaningful learning conversation.

Course webinar requirements

There are weekly live sessions throughout the course. Each session takes place in evenings and the dates will be confirmed closer to the course commencement.

Assessment (assessed version of the course only)

• Assessment 1: Learning conversation: Focus on briefing and psychological safety (10 minutes MAXIMUM) (25%)
• Assessment 2: Learning conversation (15 minutes MAXIMUM) (45%)
• Assessment 3: Reflective writing (2500 words) (30%)

Program structure

Effective communication is essential for optimising learning. While feedback and debriefing are common in health professions education, they are often practised in widely different ways. From a learner’s perspective, feedback and debriefing may feel insufficient—or may not even be recognised as such. From a teacher’s perspective, feedback may seem clear and direct. And these two viewpoints are just part of a bigger picture.

In this course, we examine how these interactions—framed as learning conversations—can support meaningful learning. You will explore both learner and teacher perspectives, as well as the contexts in which learning conversations take place. A key focus will be developing strategies to foster psychological safety, enabling open and honest communication.

Our approach draws on literature from clinical supervision and simulation, using concepts of feedback and debriefing to support professional development.

Learning activities include readings, webinars, and discussion boards, alongside practical tasks such as audio- and video-recording your own learning conversations for peer review and self-reflection. While the course has a solid theoretical foundation, it is more practice-oriented than many of our other short courses.

This course is delivered over an eight-week period, including two study breaks. Weekly activities are designed to be completed in sequence.

For students enrolled in the assessed version of the course, please note that assessment due dates occur after the 8-week teaching period.

Accelerate your qualification

Eligible participants who complete the assessed version of this short course can receive 6 credit points towards:

• M4008 Graduate Certificate in Clinical Simulation
• M4009 Graduate Certificate in Health Professions Education
• M6039 Master of Clinical Simulation
• M6038 Master of Health Professions Education

Professor Debra Nestel

Professor, School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health

Debra Nestel is Professor of Simulation Education in Healthcare, Monash University, and Professor of Surgical Education, Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Debra was Founding Editor in Chief, Advances in Simulation (www.advancesinsimulation.com), the journal of the SESAM.

Debra is Editor in Chief, BMJ STEL, the journal of ASPiH.

She is program lead for the Masters of Surgical Education (Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne and Royal Australasian College of Surgeons) and the Graduate Certificate in Clinical Simulation. Debra leads a national program for simulation educators – NHET-Sim (www.nhet-sim.edu.au) and a virtual network in simulated patient methodology (http://www.simulatedpatientnetwork.org/).

Debra has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in simulation and health professions education, edited books on simulated patient methodology (2015), healthcare simulation (2017), surgical education (late 2017) research methods for healthcare simulation (2019) and is editing a major reference work on clinical education.

Professor Ram Nataraja

Professor, Paediatrics Monash Health

Having obtained a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) in paediatric surgical higher training in the London Deanery I worked as a Paediatric Surgical Consultant at both Barts Health, and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, United Kingdom. My training was primarily in the London Deanery but also included a fellowship at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. In 2015, I relocated to Monash Children’s Hospital (MCH) in Melbourne Australia to take up my current position as Director of Surgical Simulation and a Paediatric Surgical Consultant. I obtained my FRACS (Paeds) in 2017 from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

I am a Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at Monash University and coordinate paediatric simulation-based educational (SBE) activities at MCH in my role as the Director of Surgical Simulation and the Director of Monash Children’s Simulation (MCS). These are organisations which I founded in 2015 conduct both internal and external SBE and collaborative educational projects with organisations such as the W.H.O. Since forming MCS we have delivered more than 500 educational activities to more than 5000 participants. This includes inter-professional learning and surgical courses targeted towards General Surgery, Paediatric Surgery and Obstetrics & Gynaecology with a novel home-based laparoscopic programme. The medical programme includes courses targeting neonatology, paediatrics, and surgery for both nursing and medical participants. In the COVID-19 Pandemic we have converted most of the portfolio to virtual courses with equivalent feedback to the traditional face-to-face courses. I am also the co-director of multiple postgraduate courses at Monash University leading to the award of the Graduate Certificate of Clinical Simulation.

Got a question? Check our FAQ page.