Escape Classroom Monotony: Creating “Escape Room” Activities to Engage Learners

by Natalie Kern, PharmD, PGY1 Community Pharmacy Practice Resident, Walgreens Pharmacy

In my experience as a student, educational games merely included flash cards for memorizing drug names and the ever-famous Jeopardy test review before a big exam. A recent publication caught my eye. The instructors were using an “escape room” for teaching and learning purposes.  The notion of participating in an escape room in an academic setting seemed exhilarating but, frankly, unfathomable. An escape room is a “live-action team-based game where players discover clues, solve puzzles, and accomplish tasks in one or more rooms in order to accomplish specific goals in a limited amount of time.”¹ On any given Saturday night, you can find friends lining up to embark on an escape room adventure. No matter the age, people seem to love the interactive mystery of the escape room. Escape rooms are a team-building adventure game, where players are locked in a room to gather clues, discover hidden objects, and solve riddles in order to escape. Could such a collaborative, task-centered, time-based activity be used to promote student engagement in the classroom?

Many educators struggle to effectively maintain the attention and interest of millennial students in traditional classrooms. Teaching methods such as problem-based learning, flipped classrooms, case-based learning, and gaming seek to promote engagement. “Escape room”- like activities are a new form of instructional gaming or gamification. Clues and puzzles provided in the activity relate to the specific learning objectives of the course. While health professional programs in medicine, nursing, and pharmacy have documented adaptations of educational escape rooms, all describe their success in small groups of students.

The University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy adapted the popular phenomenon into its five-credit required Pharmacy Management course when third-year student pharmacists expressed disinterest in the course.² Students felt that the course was irrelevant to their future careers. The course instructors decided to adapt by providing students with engaging real-life applications. They developed a blended online/ offline escape room activity to help students review basic human resource laws and the hiring process. The course designers built an educational escape room for a class of over 100 student pharmacists. Students were not required to escape an actual room; instead, they completed paper and electronic puzzles and riddles that lead to a series of clues that would help them unlock a box with a combination lock.

One week before participating in the educational escape room, the instructors gave a two-hour lecture on employment law and explained the hiring process. The students were given all the information that they needed to successfully complete the “escape room.” Therefore, the objective of the activity was to reinforce the fundamentals of human resource principles discussed in the lecture. The “escape room” was designed to be completed in a one-hour class period, allowing 5 minutes for instruction, 45-minutes for the students to solve the escape puzzles, and 10 minutes for debriefing.  Using an online learning management system, students were organized into twenty-four groups consisting of five to six learners. On the day of the activity, groups met face-to-face in the classroom auditorium. Two-course instructors and a PGY1 resident facilitated the activity by reviewing the rules and directions of the game and a timer was set for 45 minutes. Each team was required to complete 10 puzzles that would enable them to select the best candidate for a new pharmacist’s position. A four-digit number was embedded within the best candidate's resume; this would be used to unlock a box at the front of the auditorium.  If any team was unable to advance to the next puzzle, they could ask for a hint from an instructor. However, the team would be given a one-minute penalty. The three teams who finished the fastest received bonus points for the management course. All participants were asked to complete an anonymous survey about their experience. One hundred and thirty-nine responses were recorded.

Overall, the students' perceptions of the escape room activity were positive. Ninety-one percent of students reported more engagement in the material compared to the typical classroom lecture. Over 80% of participants felt more involved in the subject matter when compared to the lecture. The students also agreed that teamwork played an important part in successfully completing the activity. From the instructors’ perspective, logistics were complex and a lot of planning was required for the success of this large-scale escaped room.

Thinking of implementing an educational escape room in your course? While creating puzzles and clues are not difficult, ensuring that students are engaged in the material rather than merely playing a game is a key to the instructional design. This challenges educators to develop clear objectives. Does Bloom’s Taxonomy ring a bell? It is important to identify the cognitive domains the escape room is intended to achieve when writing the objectives.³ In reflecting on the potential educational outcomes of an escape room, students are challenged to think critically, transitioning from understanding lecture material to applying and analyzing the information. A course designer needs to consider the class and room size as well as logistics when planning the escape room. Students can be placed into small groups in class or online based on the preference of the course designer and space limitations. The instructor will need to create a set of activities that encourage the students to problem solve together and to arrive at a specific answer. A correct answer reveals a new clue and a new activity or challenge. When facilitating an escape room for a large group of students, online problem-solving activities are not limited by space and can save money on supplies. Be mindful of the time needed for the instructor to create and the students to participate in the escape room. According to Cain, it took 20 hours to design the puzzles and clues for the activity. Lastly, consider pilot testing the activity on a small group of students to estimate the time needed to complete the escape room. This will also help identify potential problems.¹

After listening to more than my fair share of lectures, the classroom feels more like a room that I’d like to escape rather than an engaging space for intellectual growth. New methods for gamification create an innovative spin on the beloved “group project” by facilitating collaborative efforts of all team members to reach the finish line. Escape room-like activities require effective communication, teamwork, and delegation. These are skills needed to be an effective member of a healthcare team. Escape rooms are a great way to challenge students to be collaborative problem-solvers.

References

1. Peeking behind the locked door: A survey of escape room facilities. Self-published 2015.  White Paper available online at:http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/erfacwhite.pdf.
2. Cain J. Exploratory implementation of a blended format escape room in a large enrollment pharmacy management class. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning. 2019 Jan;11(1):44-50. doi: 10.1016/j.cptl.2018.09.010. Epub 2018 Oct 3.
3. Poirier T, Crouch M, MacKinnon G, Mehvar R, Monk-Tutor M; American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.. Updated guidelines for manuscripts describing instructional design and assessment: the IDEAS format. Am J Pharm Educ. 2009 May 27;73(3): Article 55. 

Edutainment: Is There a Place for it in Higher Education?

by Anna Kathryn Ward, PharmD, PGY1 Community/Public Health Pharmacy Resident, Mississippi State Department of Health Pharmacy

Whether you are known as a mentor, teacher, preceptor, and/or facilitator, all forms of teaching are moving toward an innovative and creative way of presenting instructional material. “Edutainment”  is growing in popularity, mostly due to the growing number of students that have grown up with ubiquitous technology and entertainment venues. Edutainment is the “presentation of informative or educational material in an entertaining style.”¹ An entertaining style encompasses four different processes known as signaling (e.g., highlighting keywords, changing font color), segmenting (e.g., short videos, short chapters within videos as well as question prompts), weeding (e.g., eliminating extraneous information), and matching modalities (e.g., auditory and visual channels to convey information).² There are many examples of edutainment including the use of short television and movie clips to introduce a concept, the use of board and computer games to learn and/or apply a concept, as entertaining videos that explain topics (e.g., YouTube; Kahn-Academy).

As educators have come to a greater understanding on how people learn and that “one size does not fit all,” edutainment is one potential solution that’s creative and has been used successfully. Edutainment is widely used by preschool and elementary educators, due to popular children’s programming such as Sesame Street that provides educational topics with an entertaining delivery. With new advancements in technology, teachers can now create their own videos and games. The need for a large budget and staff to produce edutainment elements has become unnecessary. But is there a place for edutainment in higher education?

While I am a recent graduate from a professional program, in my current role I now have the responsibility to teach and help millennial students gain knowledge and grow as future pharmacists. This generation seemingly has the expectation, need, and wish to be entertained throughout their learning experiences.³ Because of this expectation, multimedia presentations and the integration of edutainment is gaining momentum and popularity in many college classrooms.³ Strategies, reasoning, and rationales for integrating edutainment elements into the college classroom have received attention in the educational literature in recent years.

One study investigated the use of instructional YouTube videos by faculty to augment instruction in college classes. An online survey was distributed to health and human performance faculty at a southeastern university in the United States. Information about the course levels taught, number of courses taught, and instructional setting (online or in-class) were gathered in the survey. The results showed that slightly more than 40% of the faculty reported the use of YouTube in their courses, with almost all of the participants (>90%) stating an interest in learning how to use of YouTube as a learning resource. The study found that the faculty who use YouTube in their courses consider it to be an effective teaching resource and enhances their course material.³

Another study investigated how online content (e.g., YouTube) could be used as a means to reach today’s students and capture their attention and interest, with the goal of increasing the long-term retention of the course content. The study evaluated 284 college students exposed to two types of videos. The students were introduced to a lesson’s concept either through an emotionally charged video (humorous stimuli) or a neutral video (utilitarian stimuli). Five months later, the students were asked to complete a survey testing their long-term recall of the content. Results indicated that humorous videos shown at the beginning of a class increased the positive mood of students, increasing active learning and attention. Moreover, humorous videos that were congruent with the educational objectives more effectively reinforce the material and significantly increased short and long-term recall when compared to the utilitarian videos.⁴

There has also been research looking at entertaining approaches to training pharmacy preceptors. A training program was developed consisting of 12 online video episodes providing innovative, entertaining, and flexible continuing education programs for pharmacy preceptors. The 12 episodes combine to form a mini-series that form a professionally produced movie. Each episode is five to eight minutes in length and designed to include entertaining elements, practical scenarios, commentary, and teaching pearls. The mini-series follows a pharmacist and student storyline. Participants in the program completed questions and evaluations after each episode, and three months following completion of the training a survey was distributed to analyze their long-term impact on precepting skills. The 202 participants stated significant increases in their confidence level as an educator when comparing the pre- and post-program survey results. Questions about the entertainment value were included on the post-program survey with 99% of the participants indicating they would recommend the program to others and would complete a program of similar format again.⁵

Given the conclusions from these studies, the evidence provides positive reasons for using edutainment in higher education. It can be concluded that teaching with entertaining elements can enhance student attention and results in greater recall of the material. Entertaining materials may also increase curiosity and motivate students to learn more on their own. Simple ways to start incorporating these elements into teaching include using short pre-made videos found on the Internet, using a role-playing game for students to apply the concepts taught, and/or simply changing color and contrast of important information in PowerPoint slides. Teachers can easily adjust the use of these elements throughout their lessons. There is some controversy about how often edutainment elements should be used. Finding the right balance and learning what works to teach certain concepts requires careful consideration. Some topics might work well with videos, where others might work better with in-class games. It’s all about trial and error to find what works best for the teacher and their students. Nonetheless, the use of edutainment in higher education is here to stay and, when used appropriately, will enhance students learning.

References

1. Collins English Dictionary. Definition of ‘edutainment.’ [Cited 2019 Jan 18]
2. Brame CJ. Effective educational videos. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. 2015 [Cited 2019 Jan 18].
3. Burke S, Snyder S, Rager RC. An Assessment of Faculty Usage of YouTube as a Teaching Resource. IJAHSP. 2009;7(1): Article 8.
4. Steffes EM, Duverger P. Edutainment with Videos and its Positive Effect on Long Term Memory. JAME. 2012;20(1):1-10.
5. Cox CD, Cheon J, Crooks SM, Lee J, Curtis JD. Use of Entertainment Elements in an Online Video Mini-Series to Train Pharmacy Preceptors. Am J Pharm Educ. 2017;81(1): Article 12. 

Burnout in Health Professions Education

by Karli Kurwicki, Pharm.D., PGY1 Pharmacy Practice Resident, University of Mississippi Medical Center

Burnout among healthcare students and professionals has been studied for many years. Burnout is typically caused by stress that builds over time and can cause students to have damaging thoughts about themselves, anger, frustration, and even depression. A student experiencing burnout might also develop paranoia and skepticism about their future, and this may lead to distrust in colleagues or mentors. Burnout contributes to poor mental health.

There are three dimensions of burnout: emotional exhaustion; depersonalization and cynicism; and a lost sense of personal accomplishment. Emotional exhaustion occurs when a student feels indifferent towards the outcome of school work. Students may feel apathy toward studying so they perform poorly on tests and other assignments. Depersonalization and cynicism typically occur after the student has developed emotional exhaustion. Cynicism causes the student to have negative feelings towards school work and their profession. A decreased sense of personal accomplishment causes the student to feel incompetent. These feelings can ultimately lead to depression and impact the student’s emotional well-being. Many healthcare professionals and students feel a stigma with admitting they are depressed because there are negative connotations towards mental illness, even among those who work in the medical field. Students often see depression or anxiety as a weakness.¹

Marshall et al² investigated stress, quality of life, and burnout among pharmacy students attending a US pharmacy school. Third-year pharmacy students filled out a questionnaire that asked about stressors, how the students handle stress, and health-related quality of life over the previous four weeks. Female students had higher perceived levels of stress than males and the mean mental health score was significantly lower for the female students. A majority (56.9%) of the students admitted to feeling nervous or anxious, ranging from fairly often to very often, over the previous four weeks. The investigators also compared perceived stress levels between the graduate students and undergraduate students. The graduate students were significantly more stressed than the undergraduate students. The most common stress trigger for students was not examinations and tests (23.9%) but family and relationships (36.7%). They also asked students to suggest ways the college could help address their stress. The most common recommendation was to move Monday examinations to another day (67.9%) so that they could enjoy their weekends with family and friends. These results remind faculty that school is not the only stressor students face and that to have better learning outcomes and reduce the risk burnout, asking student opinions is important.

A survey of medical students at 7 medical schools across the United States examined the correlation between burnout and suicidal ideation. The authors report that 49.6% of students experienced symptoms of burnout and 11.2% experienced suicidal ideation. Burnout and low mental quality of life were strong predictors of suicide ideation. They also noted that students who recovered from burnout later were less likely to report suicidal ideation.³ This study serves as a good reminder that burnout can be so mentally taxing that it may cause a student to have suicidal thoughts.

Another study done in Portugal compared stress and burnout between students in the first two years of pharmacy school to students in the last two years.⁴ The results of this study are similar to the study done in the United States. Female students were significantly more likely to report emotional exhaustion compared to male students (p=0.017). Students in the last two years of pharmacy school experienced more depersonalization (p=0.006) meaning that they felt less connected to those around them. They found that students with more anxiety and higher personal accomplishment had higher scores on the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Burnout was associated with higher rates of dissatisfaction with school.

Lastly, a study performed in Australia aimed to measure burnout and engagement of nursing, occupational therapy, social work, and psychology students.⁵ The students were sent a survey to fill out. The investigators assessed burnout using the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The majority of the students who completed the survey were nursing students (53.5%). They found that burnout increased and engagement decreased as students progressed through the curriculum. However, they did not find a difference in burnout rates among the different health profession students. The authors speculated that improving student resources to help with exhaustion and burnout may be beneficial.

Burnout among students in health profession programs is higher in female students, high achievers, and increases as students progress through the curriculum. Faculty at all health profession schools must consider the negative effects stress has on students. Faculty should be able to recognize signs of burnout and should be prepared to help students by talking about burnout. Providing resources to students so that they can recognize the signs of burnout is a must. Faculty should encourage students to reach out to school counselors, mentors, and faculty if they are experiencing these symptoms, and they should help the students to understand that burnout is something that happens to many students. They should not be ashamed. It is also important to provide mental health counseling to those who are experiencing burnout. Offering free services to help students such as free tutoring could potentially decrease student stress and ultimately burnout. Lastly, schools should perform annual student opinion surveys to try to find ways to help students in terms of mental health and adding more resources to help students.

References

1. Bridgeman PJ, Bridgeman MB, Barone J. Burnout syndrome among healthcare professionals. Am J Health-Syst Pharm. 2018;75:147-52.
2. Marshall LL, Allison A, Nykamp D, et al. Perceived stress and quality of life among doctor of pharmacy students. Am J Pharm Educ. 2008;72(6): Article 137.
3. Dyrbye LN, Thomas MR, Massie MF, et al. Burnout and suicidal ideation among U.S. medical students. Ann Intern Med. 2008;149(5):334-341.
4. Silva RG, Figueiredo-Braga M. The roles of empathy, attachment style, and burnout in pharmacy student’s academic satisfaction. Am J Pharm Educ. 2018: in press. DOI 10.5688.
5. Robins TG, Roberts RM, Sarris A. Burnout and engagement in health profession students: the relationships between study demands, study resources and personal resources. Australian Journal of Organisational Psychology. 2015;8(e1):1-13.

Spiral Integration in Pharmacy Education

by Hanson Walker, Pharm.D., PGY1 Community Pharmacy Resident, University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy

As new medications, therapies, and healthcare practices are constantly evolving, there is an increasing need to develop a curriculum that allows students to not only acquire foundational knowledge but also learn how to most effectively put this knowledge into practice.  Pharmacy and other health professional schools must constantly evaluate and adapt their curricula to best fit both the volume and breadth of information that must be disseminated and the changing learning preferences of each new generation of learners.  Changing an entire curriculum is certainly a major undertaking; however, it can be accomplished using principles of curricular design.

While learning often occurs by starting with the most foundational information and building towards the full scope of knowledge needed by a practitioner, when designing a curriculum one must start with the end in mind and reverse the process (aka backward design).  If we start with a long list of all the discrete bits of knowledge a healthcare professional needs to know and attempt to incorporate them as we move forward in the curriculum, the result will be a disheveled mess with no demonstrable flow and likely poor learning outcomes. On the other hand, if the overall structure is established at the inception of the curriculum, deciding first what the practitioner must be able to do, and then assembling the bits and pieces that together form the profession’s knowledge base, it can then be integrated throughout the curriculum.  But how? How can we best integrate the plethora of information into a cohesive whole that prepares students for their future careers?

Integration of knowledge has long been a goal of curriculum developers, and this integration has historically occurred across two dimensions.  The first, horizontal integration, includes multiple topic areas (for example, pharmaceutics, pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, pharmacotherapeutics) whereby instructors deliver material related to the topic (e.g. a disease state) in parallel.  Thus similar-level material in each of the subjects is taught concurrently.  This approach can take many forms ranging from multidisciplinary (each discipline works separately), to interdisciplinary (commonalities between disciplines are leveraged to reach a common understanding of a topic), and transdisciplinary (disciplines are so interwoven as to be nearly indistinguishable).  The second, vertical integration, involves the introduction of increasingly complex material across time, where students are presented with basic, foundational knowledge and concurrently introduced to related clinically-oriented foundational experiences in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice.  The complexity of theory and practice experience build over time.  Spiral integration fuses these two concepts together.

In spiral integration, horizontal and vertical integration are merged to form a metaphorical spiral.  In theory, basic concepts are revisited with increasing complexity at various touchpoints throughout the curriculum.  This allows new knowledge and ideas to be correlated with previously learned concepts.  But, there are challenges to the implementation of such an approach. Overcoming these challenges requires both foresight by the curriculum designers and effective implementation by the faculty.

Let’s take a look at a concrete example of how spiral integration might be implemented.  At its core, spiral integration is basically a curriculum structure that involves the layering of concepts from multiple disciplines, with the complexity of the information increasing with each passing year.  In this type of curriculum, basic and clinical sciences are interwoven from the beginning, allowing the student to understand the relationships between pharmaceutics, medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, pharmacotherapeutics, as well as the social and administrative sciences.   Let’s take a closer look at how a specific instructional approach could be spirally-integrated.  Problem-based learning (PBL) is a common teaching methodology within healthcare education, and, like many other educational strategies, it can be used throughout a spirally-integrated curriculum.  PBL cases would be used beginning in the first year of pharmacy school, yet these cases would not focus heavily on therapeutic knowledge that the students have yet to develop but rather on social determinants of health, nonadherence, and healthcare communication.  In this way, students are introduced to some foundational concepts without being overwhelmed by the breadth of knowledge expected of a pharmacist.  Once students progress to the second year, concepts related to therapeutics would be included in patient cases, while reinforcing previously covered concepts learned within the curriculum.  During the third year, students would be given increasingly complex cases with greater emphasis on more complicated aspects of care.  Finally, in the last year of the curriculum, students progress from the fabricated cases to the real-world experiences (aka advanced practice experiences), where all of the knowledge they have gained is put into practice.

Given the seemingly clear benefits of a spirally-integrated curriculum, it would seem that this type of structure would basically be educational canon, but it is not without controversy.  Detractors may argue that while there is significant theoretical value for spiral integration, there is little evidence to support its effectiveness.  This is at face value a true statement, but it is nonetheless a misleading one, as the lack of evidence is in large part due to the difficulty of performing such a study rather than any substantial reasoning or evidence against the concept.  On the other hand, evidence shows that students in an integrated curriculum exhibit heightened retention of foundational information and improved application of learned material to real-world practice.  Due to this combination of theoretical soundness and evidence (albeit limited), integration across domains of knowledge with increasing complexity over time increases our chances of producing graduates ready to enter the workforce as well-informed, competent practitioners.

References

Rockich-Winston N. Toward a pharmacy curriculum theory: spiral integration for pharmacy education. International Journal of Medical Education 2017;8:61–2.

Husband AK, Todd A, Fulton J. Integrating science and practice in pharmacy curricula. Am J Pharm Educ 2014;78(3):Article 63. 

Pearson ML, Hubball HT. Curricular integration in pharmacy education. Am J Pharm Educ 2012;76(10):Article 204.

Schwartz AH, Daugherty KK, O’Neil CK, et al. A curriculum committee toolkit for addressing the 2013 CAPE outcomes. Curriculum SIG Writing Group. 2014.

Life-Long Learning - Not Just Content Expertise but Teaching Strategies Too

By Rachel Rossi, PharmD, PGY1 Pharmacy Practice Resident, Magnolia Regional Health Center

At every stage of my education, a variation of the same refrain surfaced over and over again: you must become a lifelong learner! As a young student, it really didn’t seem relevant to me as I was only concerned about the present class, academic year, or course of study. However, as a new graduate and licensed professional, I now have continuing education requirements and “life-long learning” has new meaning for me. While continuing education is a requirement, it is important to keep up with the up-to-date practices and ideas in your field of study.  Most pharmacists think about learning about new drugs on the market and the latest treatment guidelines from the premier healthcare societies. But what life-long learning related to other professional responsibilities?

As a resident, for the first time, I have had the opportunity to precept pharmacy students. This responsibility has opened up my eyes to the challenges my professors must feel keeping students engaged while (simultaneously) ensuring all the most important information is adequately covered. Which teaching method(s) should be used? Should instructors go the traditional route, in which concepts are shared directly through written materials or a lecture, or through learner-centered activities? While the traditional methods are comfortable in that the instructor maintains all of the control and knows what will be covered, the students don’t always benefit from that teaching style. Thus, the emergence of student-centered learning. So, if student-centered learning is desirable, why don’t more professors use it in their classrooms? Although resources and time are certainly important variables, lack of exposure to new and creative ways of teaching may be an explanation for some. For teachers, continuing education in their subject matter is important but keeping up with the latest teaching methods is also essential.

The On the Cutting Edge Program is a national program established in 2002 for the purpose of bringing together geoscience undergraduate faculty to share teaching strategies and research as well as provide seminars and workshops for teachers to actively learn about new teaching tools.^1,2  These workshops serve as resources for teachers in the science field to learn from each other and gain insight into new teaching practices. From 2002 to 2012 over 2000 faculty and 800 postdoctoral fellows and graduate students have participated in the On the Cutting Edge program which included over 100 workshops and professional development events.³

Researchers measured the impact of the On the Cutting Edge Program on geoscience faculty, focusing on four questions: 1) Has there been a measurable change in undergraduate geoscience instruction moving from teacher-centered lecture to student-engaged teaching practices? 2) What role does learning about teaching play in supporting these pedagogical changes? 3) Is faculty participation in Cutting Edge associated with increased use of student-engaged teaching practices? 4) What impacts do participants recognize as coming from the workshops?³ In order to assess these questions, 120 participants from the On the Cutting Edge program were interviewed at several time points.  In addition, nationwide surveys were sent to 10,000 geoscience faculty in 2004, 2009, and 2012. Each of these surveys garnered over 2000 responses from faculty from both four-year and two-year institutions.

Although the survey respondents were not all participants in the program, several general conclusions were drawn from the data collected. Teaching strategies were categorized by estimated class time spent on interactive activities, questions, and discussion.  If greater 20% of class time spent on these activities, the class session was considered student-centered learning. The frequency of utilizing these strategies was also measured, and teaching styles were categorized as frequent use if the strategy was used on a weekly basis or in nearly every class or infrequent use if it was never used or used once or only several times.

The research found there was an increase in student-centered teaching strategies from 2004 to 2012 based on the results of the survey data.  Faculty who were “education-focused” (those who reported significant activity related to improving teaching) showed more frequent use of student-centered learning strategies compared to faculty who were “research-focused” (those who reported significant geoscience research activity).³ These findings are important because it correlates continuing education for teachers who moved toward more student-engaged classroom experiences.

In addition, the researchers compared the teaching strategies of survey respondents that participated in the On the Cutting Edge program to those that did not. They found that participants in the program workshops and those who use the website were 1.5 times more likely to spend at least 20% of class time on student-centered strategies compared to respondents that did not participate in the workshops or use the website. They were also able to show that no matter what faculty member classification (e.g. education-focused or research-focused) those that attended a workshop or used the website were more likely to use student-centered strategies than those that did not.³

The conclusions drawn in this study are important for both faculty and healthcare practitioners that precept students. While keeping up with the most up-to-date information in your content area/discipline is necessary, it is also important to know how to engage students with the material. Most healthcare professionals have not had formal courses on how to be a teacher or faculty member, so engaging in workshops and seminars on how to bring innovative teaching skills to the classroom is especially important. For faculty who exclusively use traditional methods, are they lifelong learners? Are they seeking opportunities to learn new things about teaching?  This study highlights that even experts in a field can gain for continuing education experiences related to teaching strategies and class organization. As part of the self-evaluation that accompanies lifelong learning, I believe finding and using programs like the On the Cutting Edge should be part of the teachers’ repertoire to continually strive to be a better teacher. Only by reassessing current practices and seeking out new ideas can the best educational opportunities be created.

References:

1. SERC. About the On the Cutting Edge Program. (SERC, 2018); available from: https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/about/index.html 
2. SERC. Overall Philosophy of Cutting Edge Workshop Design. (SERC, 2016); available from: https://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/about/design.html 
3. Manduca CA, Iverson ER, Luxenberg M, et al. Improving undergraduate STEM education: The efficacy of discipline-based professional development. Sci. Adv. 2017;3: e1600193.  Available at:  http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/2/e1600193.ful