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Curriculum Renewal and Faculty Development

Virtual Patients Departmental Peer Evaluation

Flipping the Classroom

Number 20 Spring 2013 Faculty Development & Educational Support

EDUCATIONMATTERSHot Topics in Faculty Development

UBC Faculty of Medicine

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I hope you enjoy reading the latest edition of our Education Matters newsletter. For this edition, we have chosen to highlight “Hot Topics in Faculty Development”. These topics come from across many groups in the Faculty of Medicine. From the MD Undergraduate program to the School of Population and Public Health; from the College of Health Disciplines to the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, we have asked our contributors to feature their hot topics. We also have a Spotlight on Faculty Development in the Southern Medical program.

As always, we look forward to your feedback on this edition as well as any ideas you have for future stories, spotlights or themes. Our newsletter is called “Education Matters” and our goal in Faculty Development has always been to make it matter. But not only does Education Matter but Educators Matter!

Thank you again for your contribution to the Faculty of Medicine’s educational mission and for the work you do in educating our future health practitioners. I hope you enjoy reading our 20th edition.

Sandra Jarvis-Selinger

A MESSAGE FROM THE ASSISTANT DEAN, FACULTY DEVELOPMENT

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Implementing Curriculum Renewal: Faculty Development’s Role in a Changing Undergraduate Medical Education Program . . . . . . . . . 4 Sandra Jarvis-Selinger

Do Interprofessional Education and Health Professional Education Together Constitute an Oxymoron? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Lesley Bainbridge

Is There a Place for Virtual Patients in Health Care Education? . . . . . . . . . . 8 Michael Lee

Pathology’s Evolving Departmental Peer Evaluation Process . . . . . . . . . . 10 Maria Gyongyossy-Issa

Flipping the Classroom in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Marcelina Piotrowski & Diana Parks

No Matter How You Slice it, it’s All Faculty Development . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Gisèle Bourgeois-Law

Harnessing the Energy for Curricular Change in SPPH . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Gary Poole

Spotlight - Faculty Development in SMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Mike Purdon

Share Your Thoughts and Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .back page

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Office of Faculty Development would like to acknowledge the following team members who have bought their specialist skills and experience to their role and contribution in the creation of Education Matters 2013: Sandra Jarvis-Selinger, Yan Huang, Diana Parks, Viktoria Nazarenus and Harriet Wild.

Cover illustration by Vicky Earle, UBC IT Creative ServicesPhotos provided by contributors or as indicated

Production: UBC IT Creative Services

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The UBC MD undergraduate program is currently going through a full curriculum renewal. This is a major change that will incorporate principles of social accountability, competency-based education, flexibility, scholarship, integration and continuity. The first changes will be implemented in the Fall of 2014.

To call it ‘curriculum renewal’ underestimates the scope of changes planned. Program renewal might be a better term because not only is the curriculum (i.e., content) changing but major changes are happening in assessment, location of learning, educational activities, pedagogy, context, administration and leadership. Most salient for faculty development is curriculum renewal’s need to redefine and even change the roles, activities and expectations of educators within the undergraduate program.

From a faculty development perspective, there is a disconnect

between two overarching views. On the one hand, there is a sense that “it is simply too early to think about faculty development because we haven’t even figured out what the new curriculum is going to look like.” On the other hand, there is a need to “bring the teachers into the discussion early rather than later, so that they understand what is going to change.”

As faculty developers, we have to empower those thousands of teachers to take up the curriculum and understand the impetus to its development.

Our faculty development leaders need to actively support faculty members through this transition and help fill in the gap so that when we do start with the new curriculum, we don’t get educational drift – where the faculty member says, “well, I’m not sure what they meant so I will

figure it out myself.” We really need to have faculty developers in the conversation concurrently, while the shift is going on, so that they can see how to design a supportive faculty development program in order to teach the teachers and respond to their needs as the curriculum transitions.

The MD undergraduate program underwent curriculum renewal 15 years ago. Since that time, many things have changed and evolved. Within the cycle of redevelopment, we have to examine what we’ve got, and where shifts need to occur. We need to continue to ask ourselves,

“what is faculty development’s identity in this, how will the role of the teacher change and what do we need to be ready to support?”

Historically, faculty development has largely been considered a service model instead of conceptual driver. In any major curricular shift, you need drivers who know content, context,

Implementing Curriculum Renewal: Faculty Development’s Role in a Changing Undergraduate Medical Education Program

Sandra Jarvis-Selinger

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Dr. Jarvis-Selinger is a PhD-trained developmental psychologist and researcher, with primary research interests in the development, implementation and evaluation of effective pedagogical approaches in health education. As Assistant Dean, Faculty Development, she heads a program delivering a wide variety of initiatives to faculty members. In her capacity as Director of Curriculum, she is actively engaged in the current MD Undergraduate Program curriculum renewal.

We need to continue to ask ourselves, “what is faculty development’s identity in this, how will the role of the teacher change and what do we need to be ready to support?”

teachers, and students. If you think of a simplistic dichotomy of having good curriculum with a bad teacher versus a bad curriculum with a good teacher; given only one choice, I’ll take the good teacher every time. Our goal at UBC is to have both and that’s why beyond a focus on developing great curriculum, faculty development needs to be part of the conversation early on to support our great teachers.

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Do Interprofessional Education and Health Professional Education Together Constitute an Oxymoron?

Lesley Bainbridge

Increasing evidence points to the effectiveness of collaborative practice models in health care and interprofessional education is the educational process by which we train collaborative practitioners. The Lancet Commission Report (2010) entitled Health professionals for a new century: transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world speaks to the transformations necessary in health professional education in order to truly educate the workforce of tomorrow at a global level. These transformations require interprofessional education as one strategy for preparing tomorrow’s workforce and the CanMeds competency framework for medicine, also used by several other professions, includes as one of the primary roles that of collaborator. Yet embedding interprofessional education into health professional curricula is challenging and one of they key areas to address in meeting the challenges is faculty development both in the

classroom and in the practice setting.

Interprofessional education allows us to approach health professional education in two ways. Firstly, possibly 75% of professional competencies across the health professions are very similar: communication skills, history taking, health care ethics and the law, professionalism… the list goes on. We all teach these skills independently for the main part yet the core content is the same for all professions. How they are applied, the lens through which the health professional approaches these common skills, may differ but the basic content remains the same. We could teach this type of common content across the professions by joining forces across the programs and mixing up the student groups to make them interprofessional but crowded and rigid curricula make it almost impossible to find space for the common learning to happen collectively. In addition, few faculty members truly understand the theory and practice of IPE and so embedding

IPE in crowded curricula becomes even more challenging.

Secondly, we all teach major clinical areas such as primary health care, chronic disease management, and mental health as well as, more specifically, topics such as stroke, diabetes, clinical depression, dementia, and joint arthroplasty. We continue to teach these independently yet how much more effective might it be to teach them, at least in part, across appropriate groupings of students from different professional

Each student needs to learn their profession’s theoretical basis, specific clinical skills and treatment options. But in order to apply these skills effectively in collaborative practice models, they should be learned interprofessionally.

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programs? Yes, each student needs to learn their profession’s theoretical basis, specific clinical skills and treatment options. But in order to apply these skills effectively in collaborative practice models, they should be learned interprofessionally. Can we and do we do this? The most common answer is still “no”. But if, through faculty development, we taught strategies for building on what we already do and creating IP learning opportunities in current courses or placements, perhaps the answer could become “yes”.

We have, in the Faculty of Medicine, made great strides in understanding and articulating interprofessional education. We have examples across the programs of student participation in interprofessional learning and we include it in our strategic plan and curriculum renewals across

the professions. We still, however, find more barriers than facilitators when it comes to putting our money where our mouth is. If we truly wanted to, we would find ways to create the flexibility in our curricula that allows students to access interprofessional learning opportunities. We would train our faculty in academic and clinical settings to teach interprofessional groups of students. Students would be required to complete interprofessional placements and assignments. Elective opportunities in curricula would allow all students to access interprofessional courses. Curriculum renewal would automatically create space for interprofessional learning. Student assessment would include options for measuring students’ performance as collaborators. We would fund interprofessional learning as a key curricular component.

Perhaps in these next few years, we will not need to focus on interprofessional learning as that will be the norm in education and practice. But until then, let’s put our money where our mouth is and turn the barriers into facilitators through faculty development, curricular reform, and engagement with clinical sites to create IP placements. Let’s mainstream interprofessional education and collaborative practice together!

Lesley Bainbridge is Director of Interprofessional Education in the Faculty of Medicine and Associate Principal in the College of Health Disciplines. She is immersed in all aspects interprofessional education and collaborative practice. She presents widely in these areas at national and international conferences and has published in a range of peer-reviewed journals.

We would train our faculty in academic and clinical settings to teach interprofessional groups of students.

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What is Virtual Patients?

There has been an increased use of simulation in health care education as discussed by Dr. Karen Joughin in our last issue of Education Matters. Among various kinds of simulation, Virtual Patients simulation is one that is widely used in US and Canadian health care education institutions. Research indicates that more than one third of North American medical schools are using such technology to enhance learning among students in health professional programs (Huang, Reynolds & Candler, 2007). Virtual Patients (VP) are web-based presentations, often defined as electronic representations of realistic clinical cases (Bateman, Allen, Kidd, Parsons & Davies, 2012). They are proposed as being an optimal method for teaching clinical reasoning skills. Clinical reasoning in expert clinicians involves a nonanalytical process that matures over time through deliberate practice by exposing learners to multiple and varied clinical cases (Cook &Triola, 2009) with gradual increasing complexity. Hence, VPs are ideally suited to this task. In past years, several studies have demonstrated that VPs are well

received and often can improve cognitive and behavioral skills better than traditional methods (such as didactic teaching or journal articles reading).

Use of Virtual Patients in occupational therapy program

It has been reported that though many VPs were developed and used in health care education, the majority of the cases were related to pediatric conditions and internal medicine. A psychiatric VP case has been developed by the Master of Occupational Therapy (MOT) program with the intent to teach students about psychosocial assessment and intervention skills and knowledge. It is used as an integral part of the psychosocial module for the first year MOT students. The case is developed to enable students to synthesize pre-readings and critically evaluate theories behind various psychotherapeutic approaches. Using video clips, the VP is designed to improve students’ interaction skills with people with mental illness. Multi-media and on-line journals are used to enrich the learning

Is There a Place for Virtual Patients in Health Care Education?

Michael Lee

experience. The VP case also renders opportunities for students to reflect on their attitudes towards people with mental illness, challenge their assumptions, prepare for classroom discussions and develop clinical reasoning skills. Students feel the VP case generated a large amount of discussion and a high level of participation. Feedback from students indicated that learners found this sharpened their clinical

The VP case also renders opportunities for students to reflect on their attitudes towards people with mental illness, challenge their assumptions, prepare for classroom discussions and develop clinical reasoning skills.

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skills, increased their level of comfort in working with people with mental illness, and heightened their self-awareness to biases towards mental illness. Also, not surprisingly, there were students who found the VP not the best way for them to learn. Challenges they identified included glitches in technology and lack of richness in comparing to working with an actual patient.

So, what’s next?

There is no doubt that the pedagogical value of VPs is promising. Initiatives are in place within the Faculty to further develop VP cases for health

care education. VPs also provide an ideal platform for interprofessional learning, enabling students from various health disciplines to learn with, from, and about each other, and develop collaboration skills for patient care. Projects on using VPs for various health disciplines to learn about health determinants and aboriginal health issues are underway. There is an on-going need to ensure technology is in place to guarantee reliable delivery of the VP. As identified by some of the students, VP cases cannot replace the valuable clinical experience of working with actual patients. No matter how well the case is developed, a VP

case is only a simulation to provide opportunity for students to learn and practice new skills and knowledge; while it can never replace actual patient contact, it is one of the effective tools which can be used to achieve the educational goals of health care education. Faculty development can play a key role in supporting health care professionals with strategies and skills for most effective use of VPs in their teaching and best integrating them into clinical curricula.

Michael Lee is the Curriculum Coordinator for the Master of Occupational Therapy program and is interested at using teaching technology to enhance learning.

There is an on-going need to ensure technology is in place to guarantee reliable delivery of the VP.

References1. Bateman, J., Allen, M. E., Kidd, J., Parsons,

N., & Davies, D. (2012). Virtual patients design and its effect on clinical reasoning and student experience: A protocol for a randomised factorial multi-centre study. BMC Medical Education, 12, 62.doi:10.1186/1472-6920-12-62

2. Cook, D., & Triola, M. (2009). Virtual patients: A critical literature review and proposed next steps. Medical Education, 43(4), 303-311. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2008.03286.x

3. Huang, G., Reynolds, R., & Candler, C. (2007).Virtual patient simulation at US and Canadian medical schools. Acad Med, 82(5), 446-451.

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Pathology’s Evolving Departmental Peer Evaluation Process

Maria Gyongyossy-Issa

The perspectives, methods, and processes keep changing but the question remains the same “what, exactly, is good teaching and how do we measure it?” A scary world of definition-wrangling ensues…

A university, universitas magistrorum et scholarium, once primarily a teaching institution, has become the home of teaching and research; scholarly discourse and comment; and social relevance. Through assessment and ultimately granting degrees, universities judge that a student has arrived at an appropriate level of knowledge - thanks in no small part to the teaching that student has received. The student has learned. This begs the question: “Are universities teaching or learning institutions?” One is the input and the other the output, so therefore we cannot measure one by the other. We can teach elegantly, lengthily, scholarly – but if the students do not learn and come away with something useful, then what have we accomplished?

Currently the peer evaluation process is focused more on the teaching input than the learning output. We

make the assumption that the two are one, not just tenuously connected. As educators, our input gives great lectures, clear labs and sets fair exams: the output results in students passing. With the availability of the Internet, on-line sources, Coursera et al., are we, the educators, even relevant? Dr. Jason Ford, Pathology, gives an excellent rationale for the continued existence of professors. He stresses that professors can provide students with their own insights and approaches, synthesis and guidance, that the students cannot get from a textbook or a textbook-surrogate. Professors are the ones who must ask themselves “what should the student come away with?” Thus today, teaching must become personal.

The Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, a large, province-wide, distributed department of nearly 450 faculty members, highly values good teaching. Consequently, the department has formed the Peer Support of Teaching committee to formalize and provide some basics: good examples, mentorship, formative feedback and support, as well as a strong impetus for teaching education through UBC’s Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT).

Participation in the process of Peer Support of Teaching is recognized and rewarded during the annual Pathology Day.

Teaching comes in many flavors in an academic and clinical department: classical courses and clinical courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels are the obvious ones. Additionally, there is continuing medical education and public outreach, while the most ‘personal’ teaching occurs in a research laboratory or clinical preceptor setting. To be able to capture all

Professors can provide students with their own insights and approaches, synthesis and guidance, that the students cannot get from a textbook or a textbook-surrogate.

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kinds of teaching, there needs to be a foundational database. In Pathology, with guidance from Dr. Niamh Kelly and computer wizardry by Simon Dee, the Teaching Dossier is now online. This tech-enabled solution allows for access to the UBC Calendar, places to include hours, comments and evaluations, and other tools to facilitate the generation of an organized, annotated summary. Although Pathology is piloting this now, it will become available to other interested UBC groups.

A summary of what is being taught and how this is received will facilitate the Summative Peer Review of Teaching (SPROT). However, SPROT

is evolving: it currently prescribes a holistic assessment of a professor’s involvement in teaching, although the evaluation process is still quite subjective, with reference to “departmental norms.” Specific criteria of expectations against which to evaluate performance are still rudimentary and reflects familiar classroom and group educational formats. What now becomes crucial in the era of online, disembodied, professorial superstars is how to address and evaluate the more personal, one-on-one teaching. We are all looking to the University for guidance on performance criteria for this type of interaction.

Ultimately, as educators we still have to ask ourselves: “Why should the students learn this?” The next questions still remain: “What should they come away with?” and “Have I provided them with adequate intellectual tools?” That is really what we need to evaluate.

Maria Issa is the Director of the Pathology Education Centre and a Clinical Associate Professor at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. She believes in providing excellent teaching opportunities and support for faculty so that they, in turn, can provide excellent education for students.

What now becomes crucial in the era of online, disembodied, professorial superstars is how to address and evaluate the more personal, one-on-one teaching.

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Flipping the Classroom in Practice

Marcelina Piotrowski and Diana Parks

You may have heard the expression ‘flipping the classroom’ used often over the last few years. When Salman Khan launched the Khan Academy, his idea was to use video to reinvent educational experiences. The Khan Academy began offering carefully structured educational videos, which are readily available to educators and students, but it begged the question: what about teaching in places other than just the classroom? And so the idea of the flipped classroom had begun. The goal of the flipped classroom model is to inspire students to pace out their own learning and to challenge teachers to employ as many active learning strategies as possible by engaging with the traditionally passive, didactic portion at home and moving the more student-centered active ‘homework’ in class. Classroom flipping has the greatest impact when pre-session resources are easily accessible and effectively designed or chosen so that they convey the most fundamental concepts.

Flipping the classroom includes the following steps:

1. Assign a pre-session activity of an upcoming topic to students

2. Give students time to view or interact with the assignment, and

3. Use classroom time to focus on more active group activity or Q&As

To flip a classroom in the context of medical education means to provide students with content before face-to-face teaching sessions. This way the time spent in class is focused on discussing application of theory and clarifying more difficult concepts, thereby further developing students’ higher-order learning.

Technology can have a role in flipping the classroom. There is an opportunity for students to build on knowledge using a blended-learning design. For example, students can

learn independently via video or online materials, and then share ideas or difficulties with the group in the classroom. In this example the teacher acts more as a facilitator.

The emphasis is on giving students pre-session activities that are stimulating and yet appropriate for their type of learning.

Marcelina Piotrowski is an educational analyst in MedIT in the Faculty of Medicine. She helps educational programs develop curricular and programmatic strategies to leverage educational technology. Marcelina is currently completing her doctorate in education and is passionate about education program design.

Diana Parks, MEd., is an Instructional Designer with the Office of Faculty Development & Educational Support. Her experience in instructional design and program support spans a wide variety of training and organizational learning over the last decade: e-learning, knowledge management and education program management.

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Tools for Enabling “The Flip”

Flipping the classroom with the use of short videos that students can access online before class, is a great way to begin. Video is most effective when the emphasis is on students learning by seeing and observing, for example, clinical behaviour and communication.

Videos can include screencasts or originally produced videos. For example:• A screencast is a video recording

of activities on a computer screen. Instructors can record their own PowerPoint or slide deck presentation with narration or other demonstrations on their own computer.

• Creating an original video or using a video sharing tool such as YouTube or Vimeo is great for sharing clinical demonstrations or recorded lectures. These videos have the potential to include

patient encounters, interviews or complex lecture material. While the instructor can produce these videos, high-quality video simulations usually need more resources, coordination and planning expertise.

The application of technology as an educational tool and resource presents opportunities for faculty development on ‘the front line’ – the classroom. Video is not intended to replace the instructor. On the contrary, in fact the goal is to enable students to come prepared to class where the instructor is vital to students’ deeper learning. By accessing learning content, such as videos before a class or lecture, students come prepared, have perhaps self-assessed where they struggle, and so the time spent in the class is productive and engaging for both students and educators.

I’m Curious, How Do I Learn More?

UBC has resources that help with education enhancement projects from online course creation to video production. If you have an idea of what you might need, one of these units can help.

Office of Faculty Development www.facdev.med.ubc.ca

MedIT’s Technology-Enabled Learning group www.medit.med.ubc.ca

Centre for Teaching and Learning www.ctlt.ubc.ca

Other useful links and more information include:

Khan Academy: “Where you can learn just about anything for free.” www.khanacademy.org/

The Flipped Class: Myths vs. Reality. This series of articles has some suggestions for flipping classrooms including the philosophies that one should adopt before trying it. www.thedailyriff.com

Educause: Seven things you should know about screencasting: www.educause.edu/library/

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No Matter How You Slice It, It’s All Faculty Development

Gisele Bourgeois-Law

I am occasionally asked what the difference is between Faculty Development (FD), Professional Development and Continuing Professional Development (CPD), and the answer is not always clear. The obvious response is that faculty development helps faculty become better teachers, but faculty members also play a multitude of other roles. In some universities, career and leadership development are components of faculty development, while in others, faculty development is part of continuing medical/health education.

The Royal College recently explored this theme in their white paper “Faculty Development Re-Imagined”, looking at faculty development for all the CanMEDs roles. In our Faculty of Medicine, we have separated faculty development, continuing professional development (what used to be called “CME”) and career development, but that is an arbitrary separation, necessary only because of different

funding models. If you think about it, what is CPD, but faculty development to ensure that the clinicians who teach our students and residents are up-to-date in their field? And who hasn’t at least thought of transferring some of what they’ve learned in FD (e.g. about giving feedback) to other roles and relationships in both work and personal life?

The importance of faculty development is underscored by the fact that clinicians can obtain continuing education credits for participating in faculty development activities. In addition to MAINPRO M1 and MOC Section 1 credits for group FD activities, under the new Royal College MOC framework, teaching evaluations, including peer evaluation of teaching qualifies for Section 3 activities (3 credits per hour) since one’s teaching practice is an important component of one’s overall professional practice.

Access to faculty development for all teachers is an accreditation

requirement across the continuum, including in CPD. Besides the obvious one of FD for presenters at CPD events, FD plays a role in other CPD areas. For example, CPD provides faculty development for supervisors of International Medical Graduates who are on a provisional license. As well, CPD has provided FD for mentors and facilitators in a variety of projects designed to improve clinical practice.

For the past couple of years, the CPD and FD Offices have been exploring synergies between the two units. For example, Faculty Development Lunch and Learn sessions are offered just prior to afternoon CPD events, to encourage attendance from community preceptors who might otherwise find it difficult to attend regular FD sessions. We are exploring the idea of including faculty development in a CPD conference, not as a stand-alone session (experience elsewhere shows that those tend to be poorly attended) but integrated into the actual presentations (e.g.

Have you ever stopped to think what qualifies as Faculty Development?

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while learning the latest management of condition x, participants would also be learning tips on how to teach it). We have identified a conference and started discussions. For those who would argue that not all attendees at CPD sessions are necessarily faculty, as Sandra Jarvis-Selinger says: “If you see patients, you teach.”

So as you can see, in one way or another, it’s all about Faculty Development!

Gisèle Bourgeois-Law is the Associate Dean Professional Development, responsible overall for CPD, Faculty Development, and Career Development.

If you see patients, you teach.

Top 10 Services that the Office of Faculty Development Provides

1. Provides educational support for all educators across the Faculty (e.g. faculty members, instructors, residents…)

2. Develops teaching knowledge and capacity across Undergrad, Postgrad, and CPD

3. Networks with faculty developers and educators across the regional sites (Island, Northern, Southern, and Vancouver-Fraser Medical Programs)

4. Collaborates with educational leaders (e.g. course directors, program directors, site directors, etc.) to create innovative faculty development programs

5. Recruits and supports faculty developers across the Faculty (i.e., train-the-trainers programs)

6. Maintains a comprehensive faculty development library and resources

7. Supports the development and dissemination of innovative teaching methodologies

8. Supports scholarship in teaching and learning across the Faculty

9. Addresses the Faculty’s strategic needs in developing and supporting quality teaching

10. Liaisons with key stakeholders across the Faculty to provide synergistic faculty development activities

More teaching resources and information on our program and services at www.facdev.med.ubc.

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Harnessing the Energy for Curricular Change in School of Population and Public Health

Gary Poole

In UBC’s Faculty of Medicine, we know that curricular change is a labor-intensive business. Here in the School of Population and Public Health, the work isn’t quite so sweeping, but it is nonetheless significant. As Associate Director of the School, I am quite deeply involved in our process of enhancing our curriculum, and I have learned a few things about the process along the way.

Every department and school has a formal curriculum committee to recommend and vet curricular change. As chair of our committee, I have developed a healthy respect for the bureaucracy of curriculum change — dotting i’s and crossing t’s in ways that allow changes to move smoothly through to Senate and beyond.

At the same time, this committee has its limitations. It is composed of a relatively small subset of the School’s faculty, and it must spend a good deal of its time working through forms and logistical details. This is important,

but it doesn’t allow for the kinds of creative brainstorming that effective and exciting change thrive on.

To address these realities, we created the Curriculum Forum — monthly one-hour discussions of pressing curriculum topics. We talk about the nature of our required curriculum and how that needs to change as our School evolves. We talk about how we can better integrate the key elements of our curriculum — theory, methods and analytical techniques.

The people who come to the Forum share ideas, concerns, and lunch. Students, staff and faculty take part. I have been very pleasantly surprised by the sustained energy people have brought to the Forum. Between 15 and 25 people coming each month. These people share a deep commitment to what and how we teach. One hour per month to put these ideas on the table for discussion and debate with like-minded colleagues appears to be something

people are finding time for.

We summarize each session concisely and send these summaries out soon after each session. We also try to ensure that we identify key action items and concepts for further exploration. I believe that, without these tangible outcomes, the Forum would soon lose momentum. With this in mind, it is important to highlight such things as draft proposals for curricular change, ways in which our admissions process has been informed by Forum discussions, and the development of new program concentrations that were encouraged by Forum discussions.

Curriculum proposals that were crafted with input from the Forum end up in front of our curriculum committee. I believe they come to that committee with better development and momentum. Our ongoing curriculum enhancement work can feature a constructive mix of formal committee work and informal brainstorming.

There is an inextricable link between curriculum and faculty development

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The forum also reminds us of the inextricable link between curriculum and faculty development—changes to what we teach should always invite renewed explorations of how we teach, and this brings faculty development clearly into the picture.

The School now needs a written report on what the Forum has yielded. If we can show tangible and positive

outcomes, the Forum will move one step closer to becoming an integral part of our School’s educational culture. Ultimately, such regular conversations among colleagues about teaching and learning are what make us better.

Our ongoing curriculum enhancement work can feature a constructive mix of formal committee work and informal brainstorming.

Gary Poole is the Associate Director of the School of Population and Public Health and a Senior Scholar in the Centre for Health Education Scholarship.

artwork: Harriet Wild

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Faculty development in the Southern Medical Program

Mike Purdon

The Southern Medical Program (SMP) continues to mature with our inaugural class of 32 students embarking this Fall on their clinical training rotations at Kelowna General Hospital, Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, Vernon Jubilee Hospital, and Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail. As the class progresses, faculty development needs continue to evolve along with the students. In the first two years Dr. Jamie Yu focused on strengthening a community of clinical faculty who were recruited and brought together by the Regional Dean, Dr. Jones and his Faculty Leads. This effort has been very successful, and SMP has now built and nurtured a large cohort of committed clinical teachers, with hundreds of physicians and allied health professionals helping to guide the students through their rotations. I was recruited in January 2013 and was asked by Dr. Jones to help continue to build and strengthen the network of hard working instructors, clinical faculty and staff and to promote best

practices in teaching, enhance faculty development programs in the region and to help anticipate and adapt to upcoming changes in the curriculum.

Each of our faculty leads now have a team of teachers and have helped make foundational course work available during SMP’s first two years a success. As the program matures, faculty development needs continue to evolve. For example, Dr. Yu condensed sessions from the ABC Educational Primer Series and offered several workshops in the region last year. Dr. John Falconer, who leads the Foundations of Medicine Course noted that his faculty cohort are now particularly adept at the fundamentals of small group learning, feedback and evaluation and feels that his team is ready for training in more advanced teaching techniques. Dr. Josh Williams feels that his team of teachers in the Clinical Skills course desire training in small group teaching techniques. Dr. Sarah Hanson, the UBC Program Assistant at Vernon Jubilee

sees a need to improve integration and networking of faculty at our distributed sites.

As we move forward and build on the great foundation of teaching that has been developed in the region, several initiatives are underway. We hope to establish regularly scheduled faculty development sessions, available to all clinical teachers in Kelowna and supported by videoconferencing to all our distributed sites. The ABC Primer workshops will continue for faculty who have not had the chance

SPOTLIGHT

SMP has now built and nurtured a large cohort of committed clinical teachers, with hundreds of physicians and allied health professionals helping to guide the students through their rotations.

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to participate in these foundational sessions and more advanced teaching techniques will be tailored to the needs identified by each of the Faculty Leads. The SMP Faculty Development website will be enhanced, offering a calendar of events, teaching resources and improved linkage to the Office of Faculty Development. Outreach, networking and collaboration with the distributed sites, within our distributed program, will continue to be a priority. Focus will be placed on adaptive, innovative use of technology in teaching and a workshop focused on the Evidence Based Medicine

resources for teaching, led by Diana Ng, our learning services librarian, is planned. Discussions continue about the curriculum redesign and faculty will be fully engaged as this process unfolds.

It is an exciting time for SMP, with a continued evolution in the needs of our students, faculty and faculty developers.

Michael Purdon is Regional Faculty Development Director, Southern Medical Program and new Community Medical Director, West Region for the Interior Health Authority.

Outreach, networking and collaboration with the distributed sites, within our distributed program, will continue to be a priority.

New online

registration

coming September 2013

https://events.ubccpd.ca

Contribute to the next Education Matters: • Send us your feedback on this edition • Submit a letter to our team • Submit a teaching tip • Submit an article

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Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Office of Faculty Development, Diamond Health Care Centre – 11th Floor 2775 Laurel Street, Vancouver, BC Canada V5Z 1M9

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