CPCE01010 Optimax

Academic Year 2023/2024

The Optimax project allows students to experience new ways of optimising dose and image quality in medical imaging through active learning with their international peers. It will draw on expertise in medicine, radiography, radiobiology, psychology and medical physics in a multi-disciplinary collaborative project involving academic staff and students from Ireland, England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, South Africa, Canada and Brazil.

Across the three weeks (in summer trimester), a learner-centred approach will be adopted in which participants will be facilitated to direct their own learning. The heavy emphasis on international and interdisciplinary project work will permit this thereby maximising the principles of guided discovery learning. Planning and organisation of Optimax begins in the year leading up to its delivery, during which there are monthly teleconferences between steering committee members. This planning is crucial to determine suitable topics for investigation during Optimax, logistical aspects such as dates, student accommodation, room and equipment bookings and ethical applications.

Academic mentors & facilitators engage in ongoing meetings throughout the course. These meetings are intended to provide support to facilitators, especially those new to the role. Optimax aims to promote international cultural experiences, thus rotates to a new host country of the steering committee each year. Comprehensive guide books are provided to participants in advance of attending the three-week joint teaching programme which outline details of the participating universities, background to Optimax, assessment strategies, responsibilities and expectations of both students and facilitating academic staff, predetermined titles for investigation and a timetable of academic and cultural activities. The project also has an internationally agreed assessment strategy that has been devised based on input from each university to incorporate different international approaches and current international best practice

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

During Optimax, students will participate in lectures and tutorials, conduct collaborative project work and finally be assessed on their output. Collaborative project work allows students to work within a team whilst applying their knowledge and skills to given problems. Group presentation further develops team-working skills and importantly it allows students to demonstrate their presentation and analytical skills in relation to the data generated during the group work. Lectures relevant to the topical concepts under investigation will be delivered by experts in those fields. Participants are also expected to undertake self-directed reading on their topics.

Each group of 5-7 multinational students includes at least two academics, one being a lead mentor and the other a supplementary facilitator, who will mentor the group throughout the three-week period. Their purpose is to provide support to their groups in investigating topics, developing their research skills and to ensure that timely progress is made to complete the project in the three-week period.
Upon successful completion of Optimax, students should be able to:
- Propose methods in which radiographic or educational experiments can be conducted to generate valid, reproducible data
- Analyse data using suitable statistical/thematic/other analysis with respect to their chosen research methods
- Draw inferences from the data and present their findings in a scientific manner.

Indicative Module Content:

Students will learn key concepts underpinning research and will undertake a group Radiography Research Project

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

10
Project Supervision

70
Autonomous Student Learning

30
Total

110
Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
- active/task-based learning
- peer and group work
- lectures
- critical writing
- reflective learning
- enquiry & problem-based learning
-student presentations 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Project: Radiography Project including production of poster, written article and student presentation (ppt). Unspecified n/a Graded No

100

Carry forward of passed components
Yes
 
Remediation Type Remediation Timing
In-Module Resit Prior to relevant Programme Exam Board
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Peer review activities
• Self-assessment activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Not yet recorded.

Name Role
Ms Jennifer Grehan Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Ms Éilish McDermott Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Ms Shauna Murphy Lecturer / Co-Lecturer
Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.
 

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