Faculty Teaching Skills Research Articles

Medical students' knowledge, attitude, and practice of complementary and alternative medicine: a pre-and post-exposure survey in Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia.

BackgroundEvidently, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is a recognized medical practice that efficiently uses multiple treatment therapies and techniques in the prevention and management of a variety of human disorders. Many medical schools have integrated CAM curriculum in medical education system worldwide. Research in knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of diverse health professionals exposed to CAM courses is important from many perspectives including improvement in KAP and teaching skills of faculty, together with capacity building and curriculum development.Objective and settingThis pre- and post-design cross-sectional study aimed to assess CAM-KAP of two intakes of medical students in Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia.MethodsThe second-year medical students of the first (year 2012–2013) and second (year 2013–2014) intake (n=26 and 39, respectively) were selected for this study. A reliable, 16-item self-administered questionnaire was distributed among all the students for answering before and after the 48-hour CAM course. The data were analyzed using appropriate statistical test of significance.ResultsMedical students’ knowledge and attitude toward CAM significantly improved across some subitems of CAM questionnaire with a positive trend in the rest of its items including their views on CAM practices.ConclusionCAM course tends to have a positive impact on KAP of medical students. The preliminary results of this study call for further research with a larger sample in academic settings across the nation.

Using a Collaborative Course Reflection Process to Enhance Faculty and Curriculum Development

Reflective practice is a vital skill of effective teachers and a precondition for professional growth. Lack of time, poorly developed reflective skills, or academic cultures that are not supportive of reflection may curtail reflective practice. This article describes a peer-led course reflection process designed to increase the reflection and teaching skills of faculty as well as support course and curriculum development. Department faculty perspectives on the process were examined via a survey that included open-ended and forced-choice questions (N = 10; 91% return rate). The vast majority of respondents indicated this reflective process had improved administrative aspects of their teaching (90%); enriched and informed course development (100%); was time well spent (100%); and helped faculty see how their course fit into the overall framework of the curriculum (80%). The guided, cyclical, and structured nature of this reflection process appears to be effective. The collaborative, non-hierarchical process became part of the program's culture over time. A systematic course reflection process may be of interest to academic faculty who wish to enhance and document course and curricular development.

Using Teaching Excellence Surveys to Evaluate Improvements in Teaching Confidence

BACKGROUND: There are many surveys to assess teaching excellence, but few validated tools to assess improvements in teaching confidence among faculty over time. We hypothesized that previously validated surveys for learner evaluation of faculty teaching excellence also can be used as a self-evaluation tool to assess changes in faculty teaching skills confidence over time. METHODS: A cohort study was designed using a composite survey from two previously validated surveys (SETQ and CanMEDS) on teaching excellence. The composite survey was administered before and after a faculty development course on teaching excellence at the University of Kansas Medical Center in the Spring of 2012. Course “completers” attended more than 50% of the course and “non-completers” attended 50% or less of the course. RESULTS: The overall mean change in survey result scores on a five-point Likert scale was nearly one point for “completers” (mean difference = 0.92, SD = 0.41) as opposed to 0.34 for “non-completers” (SD = 0.34, p = 0.001). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the pre-course surveys were 0.83 and 0.85 versus 0.88 and 0.83 for the post-course surveys, indicating a high internal consistency for both survey instruments. CONCLUSIONS: Measurable improvements in teaching skills confidence occur following faculty professional development courses. These improvements can be assessed more efficiently by using previously validated and reliable assessment tools in new and innovative ways.

SUBJECT DISTRIBUTION USING DATA MINING

The main objective of higher education institutions is to provide quality education to its students. The faculties employed by the educational institute's plays the dominant role to achieve highest level of quality in higher educatio n. The faculty having excellent subject knowledge and teaching skills have the majo r impact upon the performance of students resulting in good academic results, placements and hereby increasing the quality intake of students. This paper will assist the academic p lanners in distribution of subjects among the faculties in the department such that the students can make the optimum use of facu lty knowledge, experience and teaching skills to reach the new heights. A large number of self financing private institutes have opened over the last decade with the objective of p roviding quality education to students in various fields of engineering and other professions. The factors affecting the qu ality of education include faculty profile, placements, infr astructure, working environment and vision of the institute. Out of all the above factors the most important fac tor is faculty profile, Most of these self financing insti tutes compromise on the quality of faculty to cut down th e cost of salaries and recruit inexperienced, untrained and l ess qualified teachers. These less qualified and inexperienced te achers are not able to make the optimum use of the institute's resources and are not able to provide quality teaching to the students. As a result the performance of the students remains be low satisfactory; this also affects the placement of th e institute. This adversely affects the quality of intake in the institute and causes further deterioration in the performance of the institute and slowly the institute reaches on the verge of cl osure. A large number of foreign universities have also go t approval from the ministry of Human Resource and Development to compete with the Indian Universities. After the ent ry of these foreign universities, the survival of these self fi nanced private educational institutes has become further challengi ng. Since the motive of most of the self financed institution s is to maximize the profit, hence they are not able to com pete with the foreign institutes resulting in the closure of these institutes. In order to compete with the foreign universities a nd Government aided Indian Institutes these self finan ced private institutes should increase their budget on hiring e xperienced and qualified faculty so as to provide excellent su bject knowledge and make optimum use of the institute's resources. This will have major impact upon the performance of the students, resulting in good academic results, place ments and increased quality intake in the institutes. Like th is these institutes will be able to sustain their existence competing with the good Indian and Foreign institutes. An assessment about the faculty's subject knowledge and teaching skills should be made and based on which t he faculty should be allocated the subject for teaching the st udents. Apart from the subject knowledge, faculty's qualification , feedback and the result should be taken in to consideration while allocating the subjects in future academic planning . This paper uses Educational Data Mining Technique (EDM) to improve the distribution of subjects among facul ties in the department such that students can gain benefit from knowledge and experience of faculty members to improve their performance. Data mining, the extraction of h idden predictive information from large databases is a po werful technology with great potential to help head of dep artments in the institutes in distribution of subjects. It disc overs information within the data that queries and report s can't effectively reveal. After gathering data from the r esume submitted by the faculties at the time of recruitme nt and feedback form filled by the students over the year s, data mining technique need to be applied to determine se t of patterns for allocation of subject among faculties. With the help of data mining techniques, such as cl ustering, decision tree or association analysis it is possibl e to discover the key characteristics from the details of faculti es and possibly use those characteristics for future predi ction. This paper presents decision tree algorithm as a simple and efficient

Do student evaluations influence the teaching skills of clerkship clinical faculty?

Web-based student evaluations of clinical faculty were collected over an 8-year period. There were 19,881 medical student evaluations over the 8-year period for all clinical clerkships, representing a total of 952 faculty. Students used a 5-point Likert scale to rate the teaching effectiveness of faculty. Criterion-based methods and standard deviation option methods were used to group faculty as “optimal” and “sub-optimal” teachers. In more than one year, 794 faculty were evaluated allowing analysis of trends in student evaluations of their teaching skills. In contrast to clinical faculty who received optimal ratings for their teaching skills, those faculty who received sub-optimal student ratings tended not to improve their teaching skills.

Criteria of Total Quality Management of Faculty Teaching Skills: Perceptions of University Students

This study aimed to identify the degree of faculty members' practice of the teaching skills in the light of the criteria of Total Quality Management (TQM) from the university students' perceptions at Al al-Bayt University. The study focuses on the impact of gender, college and degree of the faculty members' practice of the teaching skills in the light of TQM. The sample of the study consisted of (451) male and female students. A questionnaire of 72 items in four areas (planning, implementation, evaluation, communication) followed a five–point Likert scale was answered. Software package of Statistical Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the collected data. The results revealed that the faculty members' practice of teaching skills in light of the criteria of TQM is at a medium degree. However, the results showed no statistically significant differences in effect of the faculty members of the teaching skills in the light of the criteria of TQM in the fields of implementation, evaluation, and communication due to the variable of gender. Recommendations on applying TQM in teaching skills were included.

Teacher Training for Students and Faculty in a Medical School Environment

Teaching excellence in both the basic and clinical sciences is an expectation of students and regulatory agencies (LCME). The quality of teaching may in fact have a larger impact than curriculum structure on the quality of learning. Nevertheless, many teachers in the basic and clinical sciences have not received formal pedagogical training resulting in a broad diversity in skills and educational quality. This article describes a program at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine that integrates mentored teaching with formal pedagogical training to provide a rich training environment to enhance the teaching skills of students, fellows and faculty and meet the accreditation standards of the Liaison Committee on Medical education.

Improving Clinical Teaching in China: Initial Report of a Multihospital Pilot Faculty Development Effort

Background: The study's purpose was to investigate whether or not a US-based faculty development program could be successfully used to improve the teaching skills of Chinese medical faculty. Description: The program, based on the Stanford Faculty Development Program (SFDP) model, was presented to 28 faculty teachers affiliated with Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China. Outcomes included the attendees' satisfaction of the seminars and their ratings of self-reported teaching ability using a previously studied retrospective pre-post questionnaire. Paired mean scores of the retrospective pre-test were statistically compared to the means of the retrospective post-test for all respondents.Evaluation: Twenty-eight teachers completed the survey. The seminars were rated highly and summative ratings of both global teaching performance and use of specific teaching behaviors were significantly improved between the retrospective pre- and post-test scores. Conclusion: We were able to demonstrate a positive effect of a Western-based faculty development course on the teaching skills of Chinese clinical medical teachers.

The Impact of an Objective Structured Teaching Evaluation on Faculty Teaching Skills

Background: Objective structured teaching evaluations (OSTEs) have been utilized to evaluate educational curricula and for resident and faculty development. Purpose: This study examines the impact of an OSTE on faculty teaching effectiveness and faculty satisfaction. Methods: From 2004 to 2007, 46 faculty members participated in the OSTE. Faculty assessed their teaching abilities with a retrospective pre-post-test analysis. Faculty teaching evaluations for the 6 months before and after the OSTE were compared. Faculty participants completed satisfaction questionnaires regarding their OSTE experience and made teaching plans for the future. Results: After the OSTE, faculty reported statistically significant improvements in all self-assessed teaching skills. There was, however, no improvement in their teaching evaluations. Faculty satisfaction with the OSTE experience was high. They indicated teaching plans incorporating lessons from the OSTE. Conclusions: Faculty felt the OSTE was a rewarding experience and reported improvement in their teaching abilities; however, faculty teaching evaluations did not improve.

Online vs. Traditional Teaching Evaluation: A Cross-Sectional Study

Teaching evaluation contributed to the improvement of teaching quality and faculty's teaching skills. Faculty course evaluations have the potential to affect professional and career advancement. It is also important to medical education systems because is often used as the basis for evaluations of teaching effectiveness and improves the quality of manpower performance. This study's goal was to compare two methods of student evaluations of faculty, the traditional method versus online. This was a cross-sectional study. The study population was 658 students. The data gathering instrument was a questionnaire to evaluate the quality of faculty teaching gathered through paper-based approach or completed online. The findings showed that students preferred the online method for evaluating the quality of teaching (p<0.001) over the traditional method. Compared to traditional evaluation, online evaluation tends to have significantly greater advantages. The findings suggest that online evaluation of faculty may be a suitable alternative to the paper evaluation.

A systematic review of the use and effectiveness of the Objective Structured Teaching Encounter

Background: The Objective Structured Teaching Encounter (OSTE) has been proposed as a means of promoting and assessing the teaching skills of medical faculty.Aims: To describe the uses of the OSTE and the evidence supporting its effectiveness.Method: MEDLINE (January 1966 through February 2010) was searched for English-language studies detailing the use of an OSTE for any educational purpose. Reference lists from relevant review articles and identified studies were also searched. Of the 354 papers initially identified, 22 were included in the review.Results: The OSTE has been used to assess and improve teaching performance and to assess the impact of other means of faculty development. Although qualitative results have been generally positive, there is little quantitative data to support using the OSTE as a means of improving teaching performance. There is moderate evidence suggesting the OSTE is a reliable and valid means of assessing teaching, although few ratings instruments have been adequately studied.Conclusions: The OSTE is a promising innovation with potential application to assessing and promoting the teaching skills of medical faculty. Further study is required to determine the most effective OSTE design.

Observation of Clinical Teaching: Interest in a Faculty Development Program for Surgeons

Observation of clinical teaching is a powerful tool to develop faculty teaching skills. However, the process of being observed can be intimidating for any educator. Our aim is to assess interest in an Observation of Teaching Program within an academic surgical department. An electronic survey asking faculty to indicate interest in participation in a faculty development program that consists of a peer, expert, and/or cross-disciplinary physician observation of teaching was used. Faculty members were also asked whether they would like to observe other faculty as part of a peer-review track. The results were compiled for descriptive statistical analysis. Electronic survey. In all, 46 faculty, all of whom have assigned medical student and resident teaching responsibilities, were introduced to the Observation of Teaching Program and surveyed on their interest in participating. A total of 87% (40/46) of faculty responded after 2 e-mails and 75% (30/40) indicated interest in the Observation of Teaching Program. All faculty who responded positively indicated interest in expert review (30/30), 90% (27/30) in peer review, 87% (26/30) in surgeon review, and 83% (25/30) in cross-disciplinary physician review. A total of 48% (19/40) indicated interest in observing others. Of those who were not interested in the Observation of Teaching Program, restrictions on time (4/10), not enough clinical care responsibilities (2/10), not wanting to be watched (2/10), and program did not seem effective (1/10) were cited as reasons for not participating. Surgical faculty are interested in being observed and receiving feedback about their clinical teaching by experts, peers, colleagues, and cross-disciplinary physicians. Professional development programs for surgeons should consider observation as a teaching methodology.

Improving the teaching skills of residents as tutors/facilitators and addressing the shortage of faculty facilitators for PBL modules

BackgroundResidents play an important role in teaching of medical undergraduate students. Despite their importance in teaching undergraduates they are not involved in any formal training in teaching and leadership skills. We aimed to compare the teaching skills of residents with faculty in facilitating small group Problem Based Learning (PBL) sessions.MethodsThis quasi experimental descriptive comparative research involved 5 postgraduate year 4 residents and five senior faculty members. The study was conducted with all phase III (Final year) students rotating in Gastroenterology. The residents and faculty members received brief training of one month in facilitation and core principles of adult education. Different aspects of teaching skills of residents and faculty were evaluated by students on a questionnaire (graded on Likert Scale from 1 to 10) assessing i) Knowledge Base-content Learning (KBL), ii) PBL, iii) Student Centered Learning (SCL) and iv) Group Skills (GS).ResultsThere were 33 PBL teaching sessions in which 120 evaluation forms were filled; out of these 53% forms were filled for residents and 47% for faculty group. The faculty showed a statistically greater rating in "KBL" (faculty 8.37 Vs resident 7.94; p-value 0.02), "GS" (faculty 8.06 vs. residents 7.68; p-value 0.04). Differences in faculty and resident scores in "the PBL" and "SCL" were not significant. The overall score of faculty facilitators, however, was statistically significant for resident facilitators. (p = .05).Conclusion1) Residents are an effective supplement to faculty members for PBL; 2) Additional facilitators for PBL sessions can be identified in an institution by involvement of residents in teacher training workshops.

Residents' Ratings of Clinical Excellence and Teaching Effectiveness: Is There a Relationship?

Background: Assessment of faculty teaching and clinical skills is often based on learners' ratings. It is not clear that differences between the constructs are detectable in the results. Purpose: The purpose is to examine relationships between (a) residents' ratings of faculty clinical excellence and teaching effectiveness and (b) track-related performance differences. Methods: There were 3,713 evaluations for 399 faculty provided by 436 different residents. Eight items assess teaching effectiveness (5-point scale); five items assess clinical excellence (dichotomous scale). Each scale included a global item. Results: Teaching effectiveness and clinical excellence ratings were correlated: .59 (p < .0001) for global scores and .55 (p < .0001) for scale scores. Teaching effectiveness ratings were not related to faculty track. Clinical excellence ratings showed differences of medium magnitude. Conclusions: The moderate correlations between teaching and clinical domain scores suggests more thought be given about how to use both types of data for identifying the lowest and highest performing faculty.

Developing teaching skills for medical educators in Russia: a cross-cultural faculty development project

Faculty development programmes have proved successful for improving teaching skills. We investigated whether or not a successful US-based faculty development programme for improving the teaching skills of medical faculty could be transported to Russia. Five seminars, based on the 7 categories of the Stanford Faculty Development Program model, were presented to 48 teachers at Kazan State Medical University in Kazan, Russia. The seminars were comprised of mini-lectures, reviews of actual videotaped teaching scenario re-enactments, interactive role plays of teaching situations, and personalised goal setting for future teaching performance. Evaluation was performed through participants' self-reported ratings of teaching ability based on a retrospective pretest/post-test questionnaire and fulfilment of commitment of change (CTC) statements written by workshop participants. Outcomes were measured at both 1 and 12 months post-intervention. Survey response rates were 98% (47/48) at 1 month and 81% (39/48) at 12 months. Global teaching performance improved (pretest = 38.4, 1 month post-test = 43.7, 12 months post-test = 42.5; P < 0.001) as did ratings of specific teaching behaviours (pretest = 100.2, 1 month post-test = 121.3, 12 months post-test = 116.8; P < 0.001). A total of 127 CTC statements were made and 90 (71%) were successfully instituted. Our faculty development intervention demonstrated a positive, lasting effect on the teaching skills of Russian faculty members. This suggests that our efforts in transporting this intervention across the 2 cultures were successful.

Enhancing Teacher Preparation and Improving Faculty Teaching Skills: Lessons Learned from Implementing “Science That Matters” a Standards Based Interdisciplinary Science Course Sequence

In a highly collaborative process we developed an introductory science course sequence to improve science literacy especially among future elementary and middle school education majors. The materials and course features were designed using the results of research on teaching and learning to provide a rigorous, relevant and engaging, standard based science experience. More than ten years of combined planning, development, implementation and assessment of this college science course sequence for nonmajors/future teachers has provided significant insights and success in achieving our goal. This paper describes the history and iterative nature of our ongoing improvements, changes in faculty instructional practice, strategies used to overcome student resistance, significant student learning outcomes, support structures for faculty, and the essential and informative role of assessment in improving the outcomes. Our experience with diverse institutions, students and faculty provides the basis for the lessons we have learned and should be of help to others involved in advancing science education.

University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine.

University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine.

Reliability and validity of an objective structured teaching examination for generalist resident teachers.

Reliability and validity of an objective structured teaching examination for generalist resident teachers.

Primary care and alcohol use disorders: evaluation of a faculty-development program in Venezuela

Primary care offers an opportunity to identify and treat persons who drink alcohol above permissible levels. In order to prepare primary care practitioners around the world to prevent and treat alcohol-related problems, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the United States of America has developed and tested a model international program for educating physicians about such problems. The model was designed to increase the clinical, teaching, and research skills of medical school faculty who work with medical students, residents, and primary care physicians. Venezuela was one of the countries selected for the initiative. During September 1999 a five-day faculty-development course consisting of 19 workshops was conducted at the University of Zulia, which is located in the city of Maracaibo, Zulia, Venezuela. Teaching strategies included class presentations, role plays, case presentations, skills-building workshops, and having each participant develop a teaching plan that he or she would use. Thirty-three faculty members from 9 of Venezuela's 10 medical schools participated in the project. The 18 female and 15 male participants had an average age of 44 years. The areas of specialization of the 33 participants were: family medicine (9 participants), psychiatry (7), pediatrics (6), obstetrics (4), internal medicine (3), and unspecified (4). Of the 33 participants, 25 of them (76%) completed a six-month follow-up interview. This group said they had significantly increased their competence in 14 clinical areas and that they had successfully implemented new teaching activities within their respective medical schools and residency programs. This model proved to be an effective strategy for increasing training for physicians in the prevention and treatment of alcohol-related problems in Venezuela. The evaluation confirms similar findings in other countries where the program has been implemented.

A Communication Assessment and Skill-building Exercise (CASE) for First-year Residents

Good communication skills are essential for residents entering postgraduate education programs. However, these skills vary widely among medical school graduates. This pilot program was designed to create opportunities for (1) teaching essential interviewing and communication skills to trainees at the beginning of residency, (2) assessing resident skills and confidence with specific types of interview situations, (3) developing faculty teaching and assessment skills, (4) encouraging collegial interaction between faculty and new trainees, and (5) guiding residency curricular development. During residency orientation, all first-year internal medicine residents (n = 26) at the University of Minnesota participated in the communication assessment and skill-building exercise (CASE). CASE consisted of four ten-minute stations in which residents demonstrated their communication skills in encounters with standardized patients (SPs) while faculty members observed for specific skills. Faculty and SPs were oriented to the educational purposes and goals of their stations, and received instructions on methods of providing feedback to residents. With each station, residents were provided one and a half minutes of direct feedback by the faculty observer and the SP. The residents were asked to deal with an angry family member, to counsel for smoking cessation, to set a patient-encounter agenda, and to deliver bad news. A resident's performance was analyzed for each station, and individual profiles were created. All residents and faculty completed evaluations of the exercise, assessing the benefits and areas for improvement. Evaluations and feedback from residents and faculty showed that most of our objectives were accomplished. Residents reported learning important skills, receiving valuable feedback, and increasing their confidence in dealing with certain types of stressful communication situations in residency. The activity was also perceived as an excellent way to meet and interact with faculty. Evaluators found the experience rewarding, an effective method for assessing and teaching clinical skills, a faculty development experience for themselves in learning about structured practical skills exercises, and a good way to meet new interns. The residency program director found individual resident performance profiles valuable for identifying learning issues and for guiding curricular development. Time constraints were the most frequently cited area for improvement. The exercise became feasible by collaborating with the medical school Office of Education-Educational Development and Research, whose mission is to collaborate with faculty across the continuum of medical education to improve the quality of instruction and evaluation. The residency program saved considerable time, effort, and expense by using portions of the medical school's existing student skills-assessment programs and by using chief residents and faculty as evaluators. We plan to use CASE next year with a wider variety of physician-patient scenarios for interns, and to expand the program to include beginning second- and third-year residents. Also, since this type of exercise creates powerful feedback and assessment opportunities for instructors and course directors, and because feedback was so favorable from evaluators, we will encourage participation in CASE as part of our faculty educational development program.