Intramural Faculty Development Venues
*Working in collaboration with the Office of Continuing Medical Education, CME credits (AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™) are offered for specific OEA Faculty Development initiatives*
Faculty Development Series of Workshops & Webinars
A series of faculty development workshops and webinars are scheduled throughout the academic year. Workshop and webinar topics are determined by faculty specific teaching needs on an annual basis. The OEA announces the series at the beginning of each academic year. Past workshop and webinar recordings and materials are available for viewing on our CANVAS Faculty Development Course Website.
OEA Mutual Mentoring Fellowship Program
TUSM’s Office of Educational Affairs (OEA), seeks to support efforts that strengthen faculty retention, scholarly productivity, excellence in teaching and the development of leadership skills among faculty in the school community. Mentoring network grants of up to $1,000 are awarded to faculty to invest in their careers through intentional networking across the University and with local colleagues or national experts in the Boston area. Mutual Mentoring does not replace departmental mentoring but serves as an additional support as faculty progress through their career. If awarded, the grant recipient agrees to attend an opening 2-hour online workshop introduction to Mutual Mentoring and mapping of their personal network for success and monthly cohort meetings to discuss the progress of the networking goals during the course of the grant. Faculty also agree to submit a final report at the conclusion of the grant.
OEA Teaching Scholars Program
Tufts University teaching faculty are eligible to apply to participate in the OEA Teaching Scholars Program to be held on the Tufts University School of Medicine Campus. Up to 20 teaching faculty members are enrolled. The program consists of five one-and-a-half hour sessions. The topic areas of discussion are educational design, learner-centered teaching, team-based learning, peer observation of teaching, providing and receiving constructive feedback with peers and learners and assessment and evaluation of learners. Participants have an opportunity to share an aspect/topic/event of their teaching practices they would like to discuss with their peers and receive feedback, using the step-back consultation approach. A call for application is sent each academic year.
OEA Educational Leadership Seminar
This seminar is intended to assist TUSM’s faculty members who lead and manage the educational training of health professionals with developing their leadership and managing knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to their role and organization. The seminar addresses the personal qualities of the leader as an individual, the interaction of the leader with other people and the leader’s behaviors in relation to the environment or system. The seminar also addresses managerial skills. The seminar consists of four one-and-a-half-hour sessions. Each session starts with a 30-minute plenary session followed by a 60-minute step-back consultation session during which each participant has an opportunity to share an aspect/topic/event of her/his leadership practices they would like to discuss with their peers and receive feedback, using the step-back consultation approach. The topic areas of discussion include leadership styles, negotiation, management & leadership, and promoting organizational change. A call for applications is sent each academic year.
OEA Research in Medical Education Seminar
The purpose of this seminar is to introduce participants to conducting research in medical education. The seminar is intended for those faculty members who are considering conducting research in medical education, as well as for those who are already conducting this research and would like to reinforce their understanding of the foundational concepts and approaches to doing so. The seminar consists of five ninety-minute sessions and session topics will cover research questions, theoretical frameworks, approaches and methods. The sessions will include reviews of theoretical concepts and approaches relevant to medical education research, as well as reflective and collaborative exercises to apply concepts to research practices. Participants will be encouraged to generate ideas that could evolve into potential research questions and designs relevant to medical education and will receive peer feedback. Participants will also have to review required readings in between sessions to inform and bolster their understanding of the topics reviewed at the sessions. A call for application is sent each academic year.
TUSM Ed Research Scholars Community of Practice (CoP)
Communities of Practice (CoP) bring people with a shared practice or goal together in order to learn from each other and to keep developing their common passion. TUSM Ed Res Scholars CoP brings together faculty who are engaging in educational research and offers them a collegial forum to share their scholarly work with peers. This group of Ed Research scholars will also assist TUSM with its research agenda on the formal school curriculum. The community meets regularly throughout the year, and via online communications as needed.
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) New Facilitator Training
The objectives of the PBL program are to:
- Develop learning and communication skills, including problem-based and self-directed learning, critical reasoning, teaching and group skills.
- Integrate basic science knowledge with clinical medicine.
- Identify and explore learning opportunities that may not be available in the rest of the curriculum.
- Establish attitudes and skills that will create a strong foundation for life-long learning.
Faculty members are needed to serve as facilitators for PBL small groups of first-year students that meet to discuss clinical cases. Faculty members serve as facilitators who are experts in the process of small-group learning. Faculty are trained and introduced to the TUSM curriculum, the PBL program, and the dynamics of learning in small-groups during a short workshop. Once trained, faculty can facilitate by semester or annually. Faculty can also choose to participate in other aspects of the PBL Program, according to their interest and availability. Other activities include PBL case writing, library and other learning resources, evaluation development, and faculty development.
For more information please contact Donna Merrick at Donna.Merrick@tufts.edu.
OEA Faculty Consultations on Student Evaluations
Student evaluations enhance faculty teaching, particularly if they are coupled with individualized consultations. The OEA offers individual Faculty Consultations on Student Evaluations to provide course directors with assistance in interpreting results, identifying strengths and weaknesses, offering suggestions for improvement, and planning changes in teaching practices. The OEA contacts course directors to set up consultation appointments upon completion of the student evaluation data analysis.
Individual Teaching Consultations
The goal of individual teaching consultations is to address and support faculty teaching needs. During these individualized consultations, faculty can share teaching strengths they want to reinforce, teaching weaknesses they want to improve, and/or teaching materials they want to develop/improve.
Peer Observation of Teaching with Collegial Feedback
Faculty can request to be observed by a peer and/or educational consultant, and receive feedback on their teaching performance. The OEA provides both the faculty observer and the faculty being observed with guidelines on how to conduct peer observations and give collegial feedback to peers on their teaching.
Individual Educational Scholarship and Grant Consultations
The goal of individual educational scholarship and grant consultations is to assist faculty with turning their daily educational activities into scholarly work and educational scholarship. A daily educational activity becomes scholarly work when a faculty member engages in understanding the effects/implications of their educational interventions to promote student learning. The faculty member then applies theories of teaching and learning, reflects on it, and makes changes as appropriate. This work turns into educational scholarship when it produces new knowledge/materials that are peer-reviewed and disseminated. Faculty members receive assistance with the design, implementation, analysis and dissemination of educational research projects; IRB and grants submission process.
Promotion of Clinical and Basic Science Educators Individual Consultations
The goal of these individual consultations is to provide support and guidance for faculty seeking advancement on the clinical and basic science educator ladder. Faculty members are guided on documenting scholarly work and educational scholarship in their Educational Portfolio.
CANVAS Faculty Development Website
The OEA developed an online repository of teaching and educational research materials on CANVAS to support faculty teaching and educational research practices, e.g. handouts on teaching and educational research strategies, videotapes of faculty best teaching practices, recordings of faculty development workshops and webinars, links to online educational resources, and online workshops and webinars for CME credits. Resources are continually updated as more recent materials become available. Faculty members are welcome to propose resources they would like the OEA to develop and/or post to this website.
OEA Faculty Medical Education Online Journal Club
The OEA Faculty Medical Education Journal Club consists of regular online exchanges that are intended to provide faculty with summaries of key articles in medical education with links to the original articles. These articles are relevant to faculty daily responsibilities as educators. An online archive of the journal club editions is available on our CANVAS Faculty Development Course Website.
Medical Education Literature Alerts
Participating faculty receive monthly email updates, via the Hirsh Health Sciences Library, on recently published articles in Medical Education literature. Faculty members can opt to receive citations on one or several topics of interest. A few examples of the many topics available for selection include Clinical Reasoning, Communication Skills, and Mentoring. This opportunity to stay current on new publications within the field of Medical Education is open to all Tufts University faculty members. To receive a full list of topics and to sign up to receive updates, contact librarian Rebecca Morin at Rebecca.Morin@tufts.edu or 617-636-3969.
Mary Y Lee, MD, Medical Education Day
The Mary Y. Lee, MD, Medical Education Day honors former Dean for Educational Affairs and former Associate Provost of Tufts University, Mary Lee, MD, a leader and innovator in medical education. The goal of this day-long program is to promote faculty educational research and provide faculty development with opportunities to engage in cutting-edge topics in medical education. The day takes place every two years, and includes a plenary speaker, oral presentations, a poster session of faculty scholarly work, and faculty development workshops. Past programs are available for viewing on our CANVAS Faculty Development Course Website.
Effective Use of IT in Teaching, Learning, and Research
The Educational Technology Services (ETS) group of Tufts Technology Services (TTS) works closely with the OEA to offer frequent workshops and seminars for faculty to develop skills in using technology to enhance teaching. Sessions include learning how to effectively use CANVAS teaching and learning tools, videoconferencing platforms for teaching, active learning IT tools, and develop materials for flipped classroom teaching. Sessions are announced by the OEA. For more information, please email edtech@tufts.edu or visit the ETS website.
Hirsh Health Sciences Library Faculty Support
The library offers many services to support our faculty. The library Information Services team will design and teach information mastery classes tailored to your course; update your course bibliography in CANVAS to ensure copyright compliance; create web pages for suggested readings; tailor individual, hands-on workshops for faculty specifically for the information resources and bibliographic management software needed to support your research and teaching; provide mediated search services and interlibrary loan for document delivery; place course materials on reserve at the circulation desk; and link you to an expanding array of electronic journals, books and databases. For more information, please contact Debra Berlanstein at Debra.Berlanstein@tufts.edu or 617-636-2481.
TUSM Resident-As-Teacher Program
Teaching has become an essential competency for residents in recognition of the vital role they fulfill in medical education. Residents are important educators for medical students, peers, junior and senior colleagues, other health professionals, and their patients. Further, many will teach in their future practice while pursuing academic careers. The purpose of this initiative is to design and implement training programs that help residents develop as educators. Each program is tailored to the specific needs of the target audience/department/site, and can consist of one-hour workshops, full-days retreats, month-long seminars or individual coaching. The OEA provides workshops/sessions for house staff on site upon a program directors’ request.
TUSM’s Annual Rising Chief Resident Faculty Development Conference is another good example of one of these programs. The conference is open to rising chief residents across Tufts-affiliated hospitals, and provides an opportunity for residents to participate in a curriculum that is focused on teaching, mentoring, mediating, and leadership. The conference is offered every March.
The OEA has also developed a Resident-As-Teacher Guide, as well as Resident-As-Teachers online learning modules that are available to all residents from TUSM’s affiliated teaching sites.
Graduate Student-As-Teacher Program
The OEA provides workshops/sessions for graduate students on site upon request. Session topics are suggested by program directors and based on graduate student teaching responsibilities. Examples of topics are small group teaching and teaching at the lab. The OEA has also developed a Graduate Student-As-Teacher Guide.
TUSM Student-As-Teacher (SAT) Program
The main goal of TUSM’s SAT program is to expose all students to basic principles of teaching and learning at different points in their 4-year medical school training. This developmental teaching requirement was launched with the class of 2016 in August 2012. Upon completion of the program, students will have achieved seven learning objectives that are grouped in three competency domains: Adult and Practice-Based Learning & Improvement; Instructional Design and Performance; and Learner’s Assessment and Evaluation. The program involves the completion of online learning modules at certain points in school training and a field teaching experience of the student’s choice (listed in TUSM’s SAT Teaching Opportunities Catalog).
For more information on our Intramural Faculty Development venues contact Maria Blanco at Maria.Blanco@tufts.edu.