Foundations in Dementia Awareness and Care is a free online course developed at the University of Nottingham by 30 clinicians and researchers. Since its launch in January 2020, nearly 12,000 people from more than 100 countries have accessed the course on the Futurelearn platform. Nursing students at Nottingham have also followed it on Moodle as part of their accredited training.
Satisfaction levels are high – of 595 recent completers, 99% say the course met or exceeded their expectations, 97% gained new knowledge, 78% shared this knowledge, and 67% applied their learning.
The six week course was released four times in 2020-21. The most recent run was promoted by Facebook ads to English speaking countries worldwide. This increased the enrolment but – surprisingly, not the international reach – only 20% of participants were from outside the UK, as compared to 30% for earlier runs. However, there was a significant improvement in the retention of learners. Only 3% left the course altogether (this was 8% in June, 2020). Most satisfying is the fact that, of the 3,031 learners on the fourth run, 39% completed at least 35 of the 70 steps in the course (50%), and an impressive 31% completed at least 63 of these steps (90%). This suggests that Facebook was effective in targeting the course at people who could benefit from it, and that these learners came mainly from the UK.
Designed and co-produced by a large cross-faculty team at the University of Nottingham, Foundations in Dementia Awareness and Care is led and administered by Professor Justine Schneider and Associate Professor Sarah Goldberg with support from Sarah Stubbings, Online Learning Manager, Learning Technology.
Find out more.
Posted on Friday 21st May 2021