Reflecting on some of the challenges of delivering faculty development trainings to already busy and time-constricted faculty members, Colleen Kalynych, EdD and colleagues from the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville developed a knowledge- and skills-based, time-sensitive, and practical program disseminated via email. They presented their work in the Poster Hall at the 2022 ACGME Annual Conference, held virtually March 30-April 1, 2022.
Poster: Tuesdays Are Great for Teaching Tips: A Spaced Education Strategy for Faculty Development
Authors: Colleen Kalynych, EdD; Elisa Sottile, MD; Linda Edwards, MD; Charity Snodgrass; Elisa Zenni, MD
ACGME: Can you tell us about your academic and professional role?
Dr. Kalynych: I am the Assistant Dean for Medical Education and Director of Educational Development and Research at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville, as well as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Emergency Medicine. In my role as Assistant Dean for Medical Education, I oversee faculty development, as well as many other educational initiatives and programs on campus.
ACGME: Can you briefly describe your project for us?
Kalynych: We sought to develop a faculty development program (Tuesday’s Teaching Tips [TTT]) disseminated via email utilizing spaced education as a strategy to reimagine delivering course content. First, with evaluation and feedback, and second, focusing on teaching under time constraints. Both courses start with a foundational lecture for knowledge, and then a “tip” from the lecture is sent out each week (you got it—on Tuesdays!), which is the spaced education portion. The tip is skills-based and faculty members are expected to practice it with their learners. The emails are also designed with visuospatial cues from the lecture, to help reinforce concepts and to assist with encoding into long-term memory.
ACGME: What inspired you to do this project?
Kalynych: We are very interested in innovation and recognize that faculty members are very busy, both clinically and with teaching. They find it difficult to spend even more time sitting in lectures (even if over Zoom) for faculty development. Moreover, lectures most often are not skills-based, but knowledge-based, and are often easily forgotten afterwards. We wanted to offer something different for our faculty members that allowed them to practice what we were teaching, in a time-efficient manner and that could be easily implemented in the clinical learning environment.
ACGME: What was the main takeaway?
Kalynych: Faculty members were very receptive to this teaching strategy. They appreciated the format and that the tips were brief, practical, and easily integrated into the clinical learning environment with their learners.
ACGME: Who could benefit from this?
Kalynych: All faculty members can benefit, as the program comes to them, is knowledge- and skills-based, and is designed to be time-sensitive and practical. Ultimately, we hope it is also beneficial to learners, where the teaching skillset of faculty members is improved.
ACGME: Any additional follow-up plans?
Kalynych: We are in the process of submitting the Evaluation and Feedback course to MedEd Portal, and have just finished a qualitative study (we are in the manuscript writing phase and hope to submit it soon!). We would also like to study the impact these types of trainings have on the learners. Finally, of note, we have just launched a third TTT program on Promoting Resilience.