Faculty perceptions and practice impact of a faculty development workshop on emergency medicine teaching

Abstract

Faculty development initiatives to improve emergency department (ED) teaching are compromised by the paucity of information about what behaviours and characteristics are desirable in an emergency medicine (EM) teacher. To design and evaluate a learner-centred, interactive faculty development workshop based on original ED teaching research. Registrants for a university-based faculty development workshop on ED teaching completed a needs assessment and pre-workshop self-reflection exercise. Responses were grouped into 3 themes derived from the ambulatory teaching literature and a recent survey of expert clinical EM teachers and learners. Participants underwent a half-day workshop consisting of 1 large group interactive session and 3 small group sessions using role playing, practice reflection, real time review of hard copy resources, and brainstorming. Evaluation included a post-event ordinal scale questionnaire and a 4-month follow-up short answer survey, both measuring participants' perceptions of workshop effectiveness. Fifteen faculty participated. The needs assessment identified "Common mistakes," "Teaching efficiently" and "Dealing with the difficult learner" as themes. All 15 completed evaluations, rating the workshop as relevant (4.6/5), specific to their needs (4.4/5) and useful (4.5/5). At 4 months, 10 out of 10 respondents reported success at implementing new techniques and 8 reported greater confidence in teaching. The most common new techniques were: setting better learning objectives, giving better feedback, actively seeking teaching opportunities, and identifying a teaching point. Learner-centred faculty development meets perceived needs of faculty and can result in participants trying new teaching strategies.