Participating in this course has be one of the best professional decisions I have made since coming to Touro…
I am Cathy West, MD, DrPH. I am an assistant professor in the COM and a member of Touro Western Division’s “Cohort A”. We are the TUC/TUN inaugural cohort of the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE)’s year long online course, “Effective Teaching Practices”.
For some background: There are about ten TUC faculty participating in the course, from COP, COM, and the PA program. Our course director and mentor is Jim O’Connor. There are four blocks comprising 25 modules, which are all completed online. Modules cover teaching in both the classroom and in online courses. We met up in person initially for a course launch and also have quarterly face-to-face meetings with Jim and our “classmate” colleagues.
Now to the heart of it: This ACUE course continues to inspire me and has revitalized my teaching. Preparing my learning activities has become a much more creative and informed task for me. The course itself is terrific: well-organized, relevant, and engaging. Since this is a course for educators created by expert educators, the strategies and techniques that are taught are evident in the organization and presentation of the course material itself.
I’ll walk you through one of my recent modules. We are in Block 3: Promoting Higher Order Thinking and Assessing Learning. The topic for this module is Checking for Understanding. The modules all have the same structure, which makes time management much more efficient.
Each module is organized into “chunks”; the first is Engage. It consists of an introductory video of one to two minutes that grabs your attention. Next comes the list of learning objectives. It is introduced with a sentence stating the evidence-based rationale for the module topic. The objectives list clearly introduces the specific techniques we will be learning in the module. Then we are put to work on an opening questionnaire that assesses our current understanding and experience with the techniques.
In the second “chunk”, Listen, Watch & Learn, we see the techniques in action in a classroom demonstration video of six to eight minutes. In the videos, the main points appear in the lower part of the screen as concise phrases in bold lettering. The next video is the Technique Talk, a “cartoon” style moving hand drawing each technique interspersed with faculty giving the evidence for the technique. For this module, the main point of the Technique Talk is “How you know your students are ACTUALLY learning”. Note to self—the use of short videos to introduce new material is key! We all have short attention spans when it comes to listening to a speaker…avoid the pitfall of straight lecturing for an hour! This section wraps up with the Instructor Resources, literally a treasure trove of how-to documents, specific techniques, samples, and links to articles.
In the next chunk, Deepen Thinking, we review Common Challenges and Misconceptions (a single page with succinct drop downs) and, in Observe and Analyze I, we assess (with a short quiz with the answers immediately available) a brief simulation in which an instructor tries out some of the techniques. We then watch another simulation and all address a question posted on a discussion board.
In the Practice and Reflect “chunk” we try out a new technique ourselves and write about our experience: why we chose the specific technique, successes and challenges in its implementation, the impact on student learning and engagement, and how we might modify it the next time around. We also contribute final thoughts in another discussion board and give feedback on what we learned in a brief reflection survey.
Finally, to Close Strong, we watch a one to two minute closing summary and receive a list of the references for the module.
Truth be told, this has been a lot of work. Completing each module takes longer than I expected and I have gotten behind a few times. The course is also designed primarily for university instructors who teach a course themselves, who begin and end the course with the students, and have regular frequent contact with them during the course of the semester. I may be more like those instructors than some of my colleagues because I teach many more large and small group learning activities and am a Course Coordinator. However, like many of my colleagues, because of the nature of teaching in our program, I would often not have a learning activity with students during a particular module and had to make a plan to implement a technique rather than being able to actually try it out.
Despite those few caveats, I am really enjoying the course and how it is making this such a stimulating year for me as an educator. In fact, this past week, I felt almost giddy with success in creating and implementing a new learning activity for the second year COM students. Because of my work in the ACUE course, I have so many new concepts and techniques in my teaching armamentarium and I knew I was using them every step of the way as I put this lab together.
I was able to set the students up for success in this new lab first by giving them the opportunity to choose a topic in advance of the lab (one of six sensitive/difficult conversation situations), then read an article about it and come to lab prepared to discuss that topic. I had chosen a jigsaw format to increase their engagement through student-student teaching, so to make use of the time efficiently with a lot of moving parts, I had to develop clear instructions.
Each of the six different Doctoring Groups contributed a student to each of the topic groups. The six topic groups met separately and each created a concept map and action plan, each of those on a giant Post-It that was stuck to the walls of the lecture hall. Doctoring Groups then reformed and rotated around the lecture hall together, spending ten minutes with each concept map and action plan, which was explained by their very own “expert” on the topic.
One other facilitator and I moved around the lecture hall during both parts of the lab, asking questions to help groups that were stuck and answering questions as needed. I handed out index cards to each Doctoring Group and asked students to give me feedback that would be both anonymous and voluntary. I mentioned examples such as whether they felt more confident about having these conversations on the rotations they will soon begin, whether they felt the structure of the lab was effective, and if nothing else, at least whether they thought we needed more faculty facilitators.
One third of the class did this activity each day over three days (about 45 students per session). The really good news was that I had those three tries to succeed with the lab, and I needed them!
My feedback?
Day 1: Nine index cards returned, helpful feedback about instructions (which I used to amend them for Day 2), and several very positive comments such as “The split group combining into one group was excellent”, “This was a great lab! My favorite part was the active learning aspect”.
Day 2: Nine index cards returned, mixed responses about having more preceptors, and more positive comments such as “Marvelous exercise with great topics”, “Lab was enjoyable and informative”.
Day 3: By the third day I had it right. I got back 29 index cards! A few students commented only that they preferred having only a few preceptors so that it could be student-led but nearly all the cards were very positive about what they learned (even “I liked having the opportunity to work on my public speaking skills”) and the structure of the lab (“great” and “loved it” with specific details appeared on many cards).
To finish up, If I hadn’t already been convinced of the value of the ACUE course, after this week, I can state unequivocally that participating in this course has be one of the best professional decisions I have made since coming to Touro. I am a better educator and hope to be a resource for others. I highly recommend this course to any faculty who are looking to improve the learning experiences of their students, and to increase their own sense of satisfaction and engagement in this wonderful profession of teaching.