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Abstract

Objective: Review and reflect upon innovative experiential learning and student volunteer hours during remote isolation of pandemic times.

Introduction: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, experiential learning for U.S. university graduate-level health care professional programs struggled to find clinical rotation sites and provide students in the didactic curricular phase opportunities to apply health education outside of the classroom. Many healthcare sites and community health screening events were prohibited during an extended period of time due to pandemic isolation. As a health educator, exploration of remote, independent, and virtual experiential learning took creative planning to ensure students were able to apply their medical knowledge in real-life situations, give back to their community according to Marianist charisms, and fulfill healthcare-related volunteer service hour requirements. These charisms include forming welcoming relationships within the community and building a better world through action.

Methods: Exploration of student experiential learning remotely included a creative reflection of unmet community outreach and research goals. Faculty coordination with nonprofit community health partners in the city of Dayton, Ohio was solicited to investigate the possibility for student participation in faculty-supervised virtual administration of health literacy surveys in African immigrants and refugees, mass vaccination in Dayton, and composition plus editing of health education materials for video production of various conditions including COVID-19, vaccination, diabetes and high blood pressure. There was also a need for student creation and revision of health education materials like pamphlet layouts and closed-captioning/subtitle files. Graduate-level Physician Assistant and pharmacy students (n=7) were provided autonomy and self-directed learning opportunities with primarily remote faculty feedback. Faculty solicited student reflections regarding remote and isolated experiential learning.

Results: Nine students were able to apply information being learned in a variety of ways even in isolated or remote experiential learning volunteer opportunities. For administration of virtual health literacy surveys in the immigrant and refugee population, students were provided a unique perspective and collaboration about health disparities including healthcare and language barriers to health information. Students also were applying health maintenance information and general disease therapy information when composing a variety of materials for health education regarding the pandemic health-related issues and other common health conditions. Another important aspect of this type of experiential education included transitioning the medical language they were learning in the classroom to a lower health literacy level in underserved populations of various primary languages.

Conclusion: Thinking outside of the box during pandemic isolation afforded students a unique and engaging experiential learning opportunity in the form of various stages in health education media production, pandemic mass vaccinations, as well as surveying health literacy in underserved populations. Lessons learned during this historical education opportunity could be applied to online learning, scarcity of student clinical education site placement and prospective health student experience admission requirements.

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