SHOW INFO
As academic physicians, we really aren't taught how to teach our colleagues or our residents or our staff. So today I'm going to talk to you about how to apply adult learning principles to our teaching. It was not long ago that I was in the same boat as many of you, struggling to be known for my area of expertise, feeling like my contributions were lost in the shuffle and unsure how to advance my career.
I spent a lot of time juggling tasks that didn't quite align with my goals and I missed out on a lot of precious moments with my family. But I've had my aha moment and now I'm all about channeling my energy into activities that truly propel me forward and bring me happiness. I'm Stacey Ishman and I'm the host of the Medical Mentor Coaching Podcast.
I'm a full professor who's built clinical, research, and administrative programs while mentoring and coaching young academic physicians from medical school through their first 10 years of practice. Please join me as we dive into all things career advancement, finding your niche, and working towards that elusive work-life integration. Hello, and welcome back to the Medical Mentor Coaching Podcast.
INTRO
I'm Stacey Ishman, and today we're going to be talking about strategies to engage adult learners in medical education. While many of us teach students, residents, and fellows, there's always the opportunity to teach our colleagues, including the clinic staff, the operating room staff. One of the most interesting things about working in academic medicine is not only are you expected to provide amazing clinical care and be able to advance the field, but you're also expected to teach the next generation of learners and some of your colleagues.
So one of the most important things that we really aren't taught well is how to apply adult learning principles to our teaching. Today, I'd like to talk to you through three of these principles in order to help you master the art of teaching. These are fostering active learning, providing constructive feedback, and tailoring education to individual needs.
The first of these topics is fostering active learning. One of the core principles here is to engage the learner through active participation, and this can be done in a number of different ways. You don't need a podcast to remember that, but it's a lot easier to stay engaged and to learn when you're paying attention rather than being talked at.
But one of the easiest ways to pay attention is to be actively involved in what's going on. So there's some really easy ways to do that you can incorporate and make this happen. These can include simulators, practical workshops, and hands-on practices.
And when you think about things like simulation and skill labs, these can be done in a number of different ways, and there's been an explosion of simulators over the last couple of decades, which is fantastic. We also have traditional methods such as cadaver labs or virtual reality platforms, which allow us to get hands-on or at least active practice, and are usually in a controlled environment that feels safe and allows us to get easy feedback, but also allows us to fail. Now, if you're in a location that doesn't have a lot of high fidelity simulators or virtual reality platforms, there are plenty of low-fidelity options you can consider.
And if you're not familiar with these, you can use an AI prompt to find them. One that I find useful is, please list cheap and easy simulators for the education of residents or medical students or pick your audience to carry out whatever skill you're looking for. You can do this for a number of conditions or skills, and it gives some really great simulator ideas in addition to the references.
Now, these kinds of simulations can be very useful if they're done on a one-on-one basis and can be really useful if you're talking about a skill like putting in an intravenous catheter or performing a surgical procedure, but there's also a benefit to a boot camp setting where you can use a single or a couple faculty members to teach a large number of people, and the learners can learn from each other. Now, the second type of learning environment I'd like to talk about is case-based discussions. This may be as simple as just talking through cases as a group or role-playing in order to mimic real-life situations.
Now, I do recommend a couple of things. One is if you're going to do simulated clinical environments, it may be useful to have task trainers or actors or mannequins to represent the patients. This can give you the feeling of stress that's involved in some of these situations.
The other is to use a few different scenarios and change them up in terms of complications or patient demographics so you can highlight important points and foster additional learning. This allows you to cover a lot of ground with just a couple scenarios. I also recommend these scenarios be scripted so it allows you to be consistent in your teaching points and to have a colleague carry them out if you're not available.
It also allows you to continuously improve your scenarios and to keep written track of what works, what doesn't work, what might make them better. It's also useful to have a structured discussion format, and this is something you may want to incorporate. Oftentimes, this includes an introduction or a background with relevant patient history and then open-ended guided questions in order to guide the conversation.
Now, if you're not the primary educator, this also helps you create a system where others can actually carry this out. It also allows interactive participation, and you may need to assign roles or allow people to select their roles based on the group you're working with. Now, after all of these options, I recommend you include a debriefing session.
It's oftentimes useful to allow the learner to discuss things first. Now, because we all have a negativity bias, they oftentimes will only select those items they feel like they didn't do as well or where they have to improve, but this will also give you some insight and allow you to work through some of these sort of negative thoughts. Now, when you're talking, I recommend you highlight the positives first so they can really understand where they've excelled and go through areas they can work on.
Important components of this discussion, therefore, include what went well, what could be improved, what the key takeaways are, and constructive feedback, and some of the key parts of constructive feedback are really to compare what they did to the ideal as opposed to telling them what they did wrong. Now, another active learning technique is interactive lectures, and I use this one frequently when I'm talking to people, especially late in the day. It helps keep them involved and engaged.
You can include interactive elements like quizzes or polls or group discussions, but if you're not very tech savvy or you just didn't have time, you do something as easy as raising hands. One of the techniques I include a lot is letting them know I'm going to go through the room, let people know I'm going to pick on them or call on them right to left, front to back, and everyone knows they're going to be called on. I do occasionally mix up the order if there's somebody nodding off so they're more likely to pay attention next time.
Now, this technique's useful, but it also requires you to have some understanding of the level of knowledge of your audience so you're not asking questions that are inappropriate. You have an opportunity to know ahead of time or you just know your audience well, that's great. If not, you can always do the quick poll ahead of time, raising of hands, who's a medical student, who's a fellow, what level year are you, so that you understand who knows what.
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BACK TO THE SHOW
Now, the second adult learning technique I'm going to talk about today is providing constructive feedback and reflective learning opportunities. The intent here is to encourage continuous improvement through feedback, and we all know that adult learners thrive on constructive feedback.
However, an important thing to remember is this should be regular. They should not feel like they only get feedback when they're not doing a good job or when you're in a bad mood, so I recommend that it be regular, specific, and actionable. Give them something they can work on, but also emphasize their strengths, and recommend that you talk about things versus an ideal system.
So, instead of saying like, oh, you didn't really do a very good job interviewing that patient, you could say, you know, in an ideal situation, when asking about pain, you need to think about duration, you need to think about characteristics, you know, give them the things that they should try and attain next time. So, it's education. Now, as I mentioned last time too, if there are some goals for the session and they know those ahead of time, it gives them the opportunity to look at them and to learn them.
Remember, people tend to emphasize their negatives, so try and emphasize the positives, and remember that self-assessment, even peer feedback, can be a good opportunity for them also. Now, if you have structured feedback that includes things like tests, checklists, or rubrics, this can be really useful in a learner setting, especially if you have something like an objective structured assessment, like an OSAT or an OSCE. These allow learners to understand specific areas in which they did a great job, and also those areas for improvement.
They can look at specific changes in their performance or the technique that can result in a better score, and they can also be used as initial teaching aids, so they can look them over ahead of time and focus on key components or tasks. Now, the last mechanism I'm going to talk about is reflective practice. People often include this as writing a journal or having a portfolio.
These days, this is as easy as including something in the notes section on your phone, and will often include challenges and lessons learned, but it's useful to promote continuous learning and allow people to guide their own self-improvement. The third adult learning technique is to tailor learning to individual needs and professional goals. This will allow you to customize their education and enhance motivation and engagement.
Adult learners come from a lot of different backgrounds and have a lot of different learning styles, and they absolutely have a lot of different experiences, so allowing your educational method to be specific for the individual really allows them to be motivated and engaged. Some tips for tailoring education include creating an individualized learning plan. Now, this requires an understanding of their basic knowledge or skills, and this may be as simple as asking them, or if you're in a group environment, have them raise their hands so you can separate people into groups, and they can work with people at similar levels.
But the goal here is to focus on areas that are most relevant for their development and allow them to work at their own pace. It's also recommended you have a variety of teaching techniques. The most basic way to think of this is visual versus auditory learners, so it may be useful to say things and then have them look at them at the same time so you can capture both groups.
Most adults have some idea of how they learn, and so it may be useful, especially if you're working one-on-one, to just ask them what works best for them. There's also a number of different methods you can use, like lectures, hands-on practices, group conversations, and one-on-one work, and if something isn't working, be sure to try something else. The last of these tips is to consider mentorship programs, which help adult learners and often provide guidance in a way that's supportive and less intimidating, so they can ask for what they need.
In an ideal world, they create a supportive learning environment and promote professional growth. They don't have to be a lot of work for you as a faculty member. Remember, it's incumbent upon the mentee to drive that mentor-mentee relationship.
In addition, remind people that peer mentors and mentors just a couple years ahead of us can do something really great and help us connect. Whether you've been teaching for a while or are new to the game, I hope these tips and tricks are useful for you. By applying adult learning principles, we're more likely to allow the next generation of medical professionals to learn from our wisdom and remain engaged and invited. That was excited.
Thanks for all that you do, and thank you for joining me this week. If you have any suggestions for topics you'd like to hear about, please message me on Instagram at sishmancoach or email me at [email protected]. I look forward to talking to you next week.
