Jasmine Rana

Twelve tips for the production of digital chalk-talk videos

Abstract Increasingly over the past decade, faculty in medical and graduate schools have received requests from digital millennial learners for concise faculty-made educational videos. At our institution, over the past couple of years alone, several hundred educational videos have been created by faculty who teach in a flipped-classroom setting of the pre-clinical medical school curriculum. Despite the appeal and potential learning benefits of digital chalk-talk videos first popularized by Khan Academy, we have observed that the conceptual and technological barriers for creating chalk-talk videos can be high for faculty. To this end, this tips article offers an easy-to-follow 12-step conceptual framework to guide at-home production of chalk-talk educational videos.

Can revisiting pre-clinical coursework at the end of medical school enhance learning for near-peer teachers?

Abstract Many medical schools have integrated early clinical skills courses to ease the “pre-clinical” to “clinical” transition for medical students. However, it may also be beneficial for medical students to revisit the pre-clinical basic sciences after their core clerkship rotations to foster a deeper understanding of causal pathways of disease that often take a backseat to clinical management principles during the clerkship experience. To this point, the author reflects on the learning benefits she experienced at the end of medical school when she served as a near-peer teacher in an integrated, organ-based physiology and pathophysiology course for first-year medical students. “Teaching to learn” as a senior medical student may be a way to consolidate and foster deeper understanding of medical knowledge in the post-clerkship period of medical school.

Teaching & Learning Tips 4: Motivation and emotion in learning

Challenge: Trainees’ motivational and emotional states can influence their learning and career decisions, but historically these “affective” learning factors have received little attention in medical education. In this “Tips” piece, we outline strategies to positively influence trainees’ intrinsic motivation and emotion toward their training to ultimately enhance their overall learning experience.

Teaching & Learning Tips 5: Making lectures more “active”

Challenge: Although lecturing is an efficient method for the dissemination of information, it has long been criticized for learner passivity and diminished knowledge retention. Active learning strategies to engage the audience in the learning process can facilitate a bidirectional flow of ideas and content between teacher and students during a lecture to keep learners engaged and participating.

Twelve tips for implementation of “student-as-teacher” programs

Abstract Much has been written about the learning benefits of peer teaching for medical trainees. What remains less certain is how practically to implement “Student-as-teacher” (SaT) programs combining teacher-skills training with hands-on teaching experiences for medical students to prepare them for their roles as teachers in residency and beyond. In this article, we address this gap by outlining twelve tips for the implementation of SaT programs based on review of the literature and our experience implementing SaT curricula at our institution. We have organized the tips into three domains (i.e. preimplementation, implementation and postimplementation) to encourage SaT coordinators to iteratively consider how to continually enhance SaT programs before, during and after their implementation.

Defining curricular priorities for student-as-teacher programs: A National Delphi Study

Abstract Background: “Student-as-Teacher” (SaT) programs have been growing in number to prepare medical students for their teaching roles in residency and beyond, but it remains unknown what content areas should be covered in SaT curricula. Aim: To determine five to ten “essential” content areas for inclusion in SaT curricula using expert opinion. Methods: Using a three-round Delphi process, moderators iteratively surveyed a panel of 28 medical educators (25 academy directors and three individuals identified as having expertise in undergraduate medical education) representing 25 medical schools in the United States. This “SaT Delphi Working Group” was tasked with rating topics for inclusion in SaT curricula on a 3-point scale (i.e. 1. “essential,” 2. “important, but not essential” 3. “not important”). Topics achieving ≥70% consensus as “essential,” “important” or “not important” were accepted by the moderators and removed from subsequent rounds. Results: Hundred per cent response rate (n = 28) was achieved for all survey rounds. Five content areas reached consensus as “essential” for inclusion in a SaT curriculum: feedback, bedside teaching and clinical precepting, small-group teaching, case-based teaching and professionalism as a medical educator. Conclusion: This consensus from a group of leaders in medical education is a first step toward the implementation of more developmentally-appropriate SaT competencies.

Teaching & Learning Tips 2: Cognitive load theory

Challenge: Dermatology trainees include medical students, residents, and fellows. Variability in level of experience and background knowledge can make clinical teaching challenging. Research also shows novices have different ways of thinking than experts, which must be acknowledged in the preceptor‐trainee interaction for optimal teaching and learning to occur. Herein we explore how “cognitive load” varies with learner level and how reducing cognitive load can enhance learning, especially for novice learners.

Co-teaching: applications in medical education

Coteaching is an instructional method whereby two educators share the planning, delivery and assessment of instruction, as well as the physical space of educational delivery. 1 Originally developed as a teaching method to supplement student learning in the special education and general education settings, 1,2 coteaching is a versatile teaching strategy that can be adapted to a variety of settings and learning needs, as illustrated by Cook and Friend ’ s fi ve proposed models of coteaching (Table 1 ). 1

Teaching & Learning Tips 10: Interspecialty teaching through inpatient dermatology consults

Medical students and residents often have little experience in placing or responding to dermatologic consults in the inpatient setting when they first begin training. Trainees often learn what and how to communicate through observation or trial and error. We propose that dermatologists can play an active role in facilitating interspecialty education and improving patient outcomes by teaching in a systematic fashion.

Teaching & Learning Tips 9: Case-based teaching with patients

Challenge: “Case‐based teaching” is a buzzword for engaging clinical teaching through cases, but how can it be implemented effectively in practice? We review popular case‐based teaching methods (i.e., one‐minute preceptor, SNAPPS, and the “Aunt Minnie method”) for use during traditional one‐on‐one clinical preceptorships in the ambulatory dermatological setting.