31. BRINGING BACK THE CHALK TALK: A NOVEL CURRICULUM UTILIZING THE MINI CHALK TALK TO IMPROVE CLINICAL TEACHING IN A PEDIATRIC RESIDENCY PROGRAM.

Abstract

BackgroundIn addition to becoming superb clinicians, residency is tasked with training residents to be excellent educators in the clinical environment for patients, peers, medical students and other learners. Our program aimed to improve our residents’ abilities to teach in the clinical environment by developing a curriculum to enhance resident teaching based on the mini chalk talk (MCT). The MCT is an old but highly applicable teaching modality that is based on a short 3-5 minute talk and is grounded in adult learning theory using both auditory and visual cues to engage learners.ObjectiveImprove residents’ ability to educate in the clinical setting through the use of the MCT.MethodsInstituted in September 2017, the curriculum is based on the conceptual framework of Bandura's Social Learning Theory which highlights attention, retention, motor reproduction and motivation. The curriculum had residents read a short article on a specific topic, develop an outline for a MCT, discuss and optimize their ideas in small groups, and finally present their MCT to a different small group of colleagues. Pre and post surveys in addition to a peer-to-peer teaching evaluation rubric were used to evaluate the curriculum which was performed monthly for 6 months.Results76% (13/19) of residents who completed both pre and post surveys went from feeling uncomfortable to comfortable teaching and 42% (8/19) went from feeling their teaching was not adequate to the level of a role model. As Fig. 1 shows, the percentage of residents who scored at the role model level also increased on peer-to-peer evaluations in multiple assessors of quality of resident teaching over time. Medical student evaluations of residents in inpatient and outpatient settings also noted excellent chalk talks being given by residents, an observation not previously noted.ConclusionsInstitution of a novel curriculum utilizing the MCT improved residents’ ability as educators based on self-perceived and peer-to-peer teaching evaluations. In addition to becoming superb clinicians, residency is tasked with training residents to be excellent educators in the clinical environment for patients, peers, medical students and other learners. Our program aimed to improve our residents’ abilities to teach in the clinical environment by developing a curriculum to enhance resident teaching based on the mini chalk talk (MCT). The MCT is an old but highly applicable teaching modality that is based on a short 3-5 minute talk and is grounded in adult learning theory using both auditory and visual cues to engage learners. Improve residents’ ability to educate in the clinical setting through the use of the MCT. Instituted in September 2017, the curriculum is based on the conceptual framework of Bandura's Social Learning Theory which highlights attention, retention, motor reproduction and motivation. The curriculum had residents read a short article on a specific topic, develop an outline for a MCT, discuss and optimize their ideas in small groups, and finally present their MCT to a different small group of colleagues. Pre and post surveys in addition to a peer-to-peer teaching evaluation rubric were used to evaluate the curriculum which was performed monthly for 6 months. 76% (13/19) of residents who completed both pre and post surveys went from feeling uncomfortable to comfortable teaching and 42% (8/19) went from feeling their teaching was not adequate to the level of a role model. As Fig. 1 shows, the percentage of residents who scored at the role model level also increased on peer-to-peer evaluations in multiple assessors of quality of resident teaching over time. Medical student evaluations of residents in inpatient and outpatient settings also noted excellent chalk talks being given by residents, an observation not previously noted. Institution of a novel curriculum utilizing the MCT improved residents’ ability as educators based on self-perceived and peer-to-peer teaching evaluations.