Background Anesthesia-focused short courses might be an effective and sustainable way to further the ongoing training and evidence-based practice skills of anesthesia professionals in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Instructional design, the process by which formalized learning theory is incorporated into education planning and delivery, is a tool that can strengthen learning in these short courses. As part of an ongoing multilateral project between the University of Minnesota (UMN) and Kabul University of Medical Sciences (KUMS), this project sought to identify the feasibility and potential educational impact of a newly designed postoperative analgesia short-course employing instructional design principles. The Afghan faculty learners’ subjective viewpoint of the short course experience was also investigated and is described in this article. Methods Afghan learners and United States based faculty met in Bangalore, India in August 2018 for this short course. During the 6-day course, learners participated in didactics and workshops discussing regional anesthesia techniques, multimodal analgesia, safety, pain assessment and management, and the influence of ethno-cultural context on pain control. Interactive games, model-based nerve block simulations, and flipped classroom approaches were educational strategies used in the course. The Afghan faculty also participated in instructional design workshops designed to strengthen their teaching skills for use with both students and faculty colleagues. Pretests, posttests, and opinion surveys were completed by the Afghan faculty learners. Results All learners completed the course with full participation. A median of 5 out of 10 technical questions were answered correctly by the learners on the pretest; this score improved to a median of 6.5 on the posttest. The number of learners who ranked their understanding of the role of regional anesthesia in their perioperative care practice as “very well” increased from 2 to 5 faculty. Likewise, the number of learners who described their understanding of postoperative pain and their ability to perform regional anesthesia as “not well at all” decreased from 2 to 0 in both categories. Further, the majority of the participants agreed that at the end of the course their ability to understand and apply instructional design concepts had improved. Conclusions The short course in postoperative pain management appeared to improve short-term knowledge among Afghan faculty participants. Afghan faculty had a favorable opinion of the course and increased confidence in their ability to use instructional design best practices. The results of this project suggest that short courses based in instructional design can be useful and effective for short-term knowledge gain in an LMIC setting such as Afghanistan.

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In order to improve teacher preparation courses offered online, a study of the use of Second Life virtual world for peer-teaching activities was conducted. The research period was over one year and the sampling group consisted of 25 Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) students. The methods practiced during the study follow the suggestions and implications given in previous research in hopes that an informed design would be the means to overcome the published limitations of Second Life. Despite this, the authors were not able to overcome previous difficulties, and did not find Second Life to be useful as a tool for classroom role-playing in online teacher-development courses. Virtual reality, however, has promise for facilitating teacher development; thus, further investigation is needed to find an appropriate virtual venue for this purpose.

In order to improve teacher preparation courses offered online, a study of the use of Second Life virtual world for peer-teaching activities was conducted. The research period was over one year and the sampling group consisted of 25 Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) students. The methods practiced during the study follow the suggestions and implications given in previous research in hopes that an informed design would be the means to overcome the published limitations of Second Life. Despite this, the authors were not able to overcome previous difficulties, and did not find Second Life to be useful as a tool for classroom role-playing in online teacher-development courses. Virtual reality, however, has promise for facilitating teacher development; thus, further investigation is needed to find an appropriate virtual venue for this purpose.

Online teacher preparation courses have become a popular way to offer professional development for both pre- and in-service teachers. This move has not only provided greater access to professional development, but it has also afforded learners with more non-formal learning experiences. Moving online, however, has largely replaced an important, traditionally non-formal component of the learning experience, namely peer-teaching, with more formal, less authentic student presentations. In order to explore a possible solution to this problem, 25 Teaching-English-as-a-Second-Language (TESL) students were trained to conduct peer-teaching activities in Second Life virtual world. The suggestions and implications given in previous Second Life research guided the implementation of these activities in the hopes that an informed design would overcome problems previously documented by other educational users of Second Life. Despite this, the authors were not able to overcome previous difficulties, and did not find Second Life to be useful as a tool for peer-teaching in online teacher-development courses. Virtual reality, however, has promise for facilitating teacher development; thus, further investigation is needed to find an appropriate virtual venue for this purpose.