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medical and dental education track

Institute for Professional Development





Background

The Institute’s Education and Scholarship track is intended to provide junior and mid-level faculty fellows with expertise in innovative, adult-oriented teaching methods. These skills will enable them to effectively train future physicians and dentists for practice in the continually evolving healthcare system of the 21st century.


A cadre of approximately sixty-five faculty planners  representing each of the medical and dental schools in New York State, has been meeting over a period of two years to develop the Institute’s Education and Scholarship Track. Based on detailed review of the literature, they have created the Institute’s goals and objectives and defined the curriculum structure. 


Structure

The medical/dental education and scholarship track will meet at a central location for three in-person sessions over the course of one year.  Participating fellows will continue their work at their home institutions during the inter sessions.

 


Curriculum

The goals of the Education and Scholarship track include:


  1. Offer a broad curriculum in education
  2. Develop abilities of educational scholars
  3. Enable completion of scholarly educational projects
  4. Provide a shared resource for New York State schools 


Teaching sessions: The curriculum will introduce the core theory, key concepts and principles, and application approaches that apply across disciplines and levels of education and administrative positions.


The Institute fellows are expected to complete all curricular components in their track. The curricular modules are listed below:


  1. Basic Principles of Learning and Expertise; Curriculum Development and Evaluation
  2. Teaching Methods and Skills
  3. Creating Performance Evaluations and Assessing Learners
  4. Educational Scholarship


Two additional topic areas (1. Mentoring and Career Development, and 2. Educational Leadership and Administration) will be introduced in the education track, but will be covered in more depth in the leadership Track.


Products

Educator portfolios: The Institute fellows will complete an educational portfolio.  The portfolio will showcase selected examples of their best work in several domains in order to provide evidence of excellence in educational work. The AMSNY Institute portfolio also includes a section about ongoing work during the Institute sessions. The portfolio is designed to help fellows track their education-related responsibilities and preserve information and materials that can indicate the quality or impact of their teaching activities (e.g., student/peer/self evaluations; process and outcomes of program development; samples of the work). This portfolio may be useful in the process for promotion and tenure at their home school.

 

Scholarly projects and mentoring: The participants are expected to apply the curricular principles and concepts to a scholarly project of their choosing that is of value to their own institution, and is approved by the school.  The fellows must have a sponsor at the home institution and a mentor for the project at their school. Fellows also will work closely with an Institute content mentor and with other fellows in peer mentoring groups.  The Institute planners have developed specific guidelines about the mentoring program and project criteria/timelines.


Teaching and Learning Methods

The teaching methods will include a variety of approaches.

  • In person curricular sessions: The teaching at the in-person sessions will be practical, realistic and interactive.  It will include brief introductory lectures, interactive discussion triggers, for example, case studies and/or role plays, web-based learning, and instructional aids, for example, worksheets and/or checklists
  • Inter sessions: During the inter sessions, the fellows will undertake independent study and reading linked to the curriculum and to their projects. The Institute faculty and mentors will review the fellows’ projects and provide feedback on the objectives, expectations, and progress.  Regularly scheduled communication using email, conference calls and the AMSNY web-based learning management system will enable sharing of information and ideas.


Program Evaluation

The program evaluation will serve two purposes.  Formative evaluation will focus on program improvement, while summative evaluation will assess outcomes of the Institute’s programs. These two approaches may use overlapping methods and data.  The evaluation plan will incorporate multiple methods, using a variety of measures, perspectives, and audiences.


  • Formative evaluation: We will continually monitor the Institute’s programs during development and implementation in order to identify process problems, assess quality, compare issues and make changes as necessary to strengthen the overall endeavor. The fellows, faculty and other participants will provide information about individual elements. Data collection will be open-ended with the goal of identifying strengths, weaknesses, and unintended outcomes. We will share the information about successes and the elements that need to change with those people who have responsibility for making necessary modifications to improve the Institute’s programs.

  • Summative evaluation will provide information to inform decisions about whether the Institute’s programs have met their objectives and what impacts have been observed on the fellows, faculty and culture of the institution.   We will identify outcomes that are of interest to the Institute and AMSNY member institutions and appropriate to the goals of the educational programs. We will collect both quantitative and qualitative information.  Some outcomes that can be attributed to participation in the Institute’s program may not be evident for a number of years, for example, educational scholarship, influence on the culture of the institution, faculty retention, career advancement.


Commitment

The following are expectations of the fellows and the participating institutions:

  • Fellows are expected to attend all in-person sessions, conduct work during the inter sessions and complete a scholarly project.

  • The participating institutions are expected to provide sufficient release time from daily work for Institute fellows and faculty, support travel to Institute sessions, and provide adequate mentoring for the fellow’s work at the Institute.