The School of Nursing and Midwifery has held a workshop for Lecturers and staff of the School

on Problem Based Learning (PBL) and Data Management.

The Dean of the School, Dr. Nancy Innocentia Ebu Enyan, said that the workshop was organized

to meet Key Thrust 1 of the UCC Corporate Strategic Plan, which focuses on reflective teaching

and learning. “As a school, we sat down to evaluate our teaching methodology and realized that

there is a key gap that we needed training in, to see how best we can redesign our curriculum to

fix the gap”. She explained that using the PBL curriculum would help the students to learn more.

“We will be using more student-centered learning approaches, unlike the conventional one which

is teacher-centered. We want a situation where the student can participate more in the learning.”

She added that the objectives of the workshop were to learn about PBL, how to design a PBL

curriculum, and how it could be applied in Nursing and Midwifery. “We believe that as we are

redesigning our curriculum and trying to rethink our way of teaching, we are working towards

achieving the University’s agenda.”

The workshop also included a data management workshop session which was led by experts

from the Directorate of Research, Innovation and Consultancy (DRIC). The session included an

overview of data analysis, quantitative data analysis, and interpretation of results.

The Centre for Child Development Research and Referral (CCDRR) of the University of Cape Coast has held a workshop to train teachers from Primary Schools in Cape Coast.

The training workshop was held to equip the teachers to identify and assist pupils with reading and handwriting challenges in the classroom. It was on the theme “Effective Teaching Strategies for Handling Children with Reading and Handwriting Difficulties in an Inclusive Setting.”

The participating Schools were Ola Presbyterian School, Archbishop Amissah Catholic School, Okyeso Catholic Basic School, and Emmanuel Methodist Academy.

The Headmaster of Ola Presbyterian School addressed the teachers saying, "The Ministry of Education, through the National Teaching Council (NTC), has developed a framework called the National Teachers Standards to guide training for the teaching profession." He explained that the National Teachers Standards necessitated that a teacher should improve his professional abilities through lifelong learning and continuous personal development. “To do this, you must identify the knowledge gap you have and train to fill that gap. You must also stretch yourselves beyond the normal textbooks we use in our schools to assessing the library and the internet, as well as consulting experienced practitioners in the field.” He noted that the workshop was important as it formed part of continuous professional development.

Mrs. Martha-Pearl Okai, an Educational Specialist with the Department of Education and Psychology at UCC, presented strategies for teaching children with reading and handwriting problems. She indicated that based on numerous researches, it had become clear that most children with learning disabilities had reading problems. She also noted that research had indicated that most children in the basic schools had problems with reading.

Mrs. Okai further noted that interactions with some of the teachers also indicated that handwriting seemed to be a challenge with most of their pupils in the classroom. She went ahead to demonstrate how teachers can assist pupils with reading and handwriting problems.

Mrs. Rebecca Affrah, from CCDRR-UCC, also briefly presented on COVID-19 and its impact on learners with disability. She pointed out that deaf and blind children faced an enormous challenge in communication due to the social distancing protocol. She said they required tactile language where they needed touch to communicate with others. She explained that such children with disabilities including autism and behavioral disorders, needed more attention due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She urged the participants to teach their pupils with a disability how to wear the nose mask, practice safe distancing, hand washing, and hand sanitizing. She suggested that the teachers should use creative, and attractive-looking posters that encourage their pupils to practice the COVID protocols.