December 2019: Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain
Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain is a hierarchical ordering of intellectual skills used by educators and learners to organize educational experiences. Created by Benjamin Bloom in 1956, and revised by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl in 2001, the taxonomy is often used to classify learning outcomes and objectives.
The Six Levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy:
- Remember: memorizing information
- Understand: organizing and summarizing information
- Apply: using information to solve problems
- Analyze: using information to explain a problem
- Evaluate: using information to make a judgement
- Create: using information to design a new solution to a problem
November 2019: Educator Portfolio
An educator portfolio is a collection of documentation that provides evidence of your effectiveness as an educator. Used as part of the promotion process at MCW, a faculty member’s portfolio contains data and narratives that provide context for that data.
General Guidelines for Creating Your Portfolio:
- Keep your portfolio simple, succinct, and focused on examples that demonstrate your effectiveness as an educator.
- Don’t use the portfolio to repeat information already available in your Curriculum Vitae (CV).
- Use bullet points and graphics when possible; avoid long narratives that do not draw attention to your successes.
October 2019: Master Adaptive Learner
Master Adaptive Learner, or MAL, is a conceptual framework developed by Dr. William Cutrer and colleagues to guide medical educators in developing medical students’ skills in adaptive expertise, or their ability to learn and innovate to meet the challenges of modern clinical practice. MALs go through four general phases when learning in practice: Planning, Learning, Assessing, and Adjusting. This is an iterative process, one in which the learner moves amongst the phases as some questions are resolved and other questions arise.
The Four Phases:
- Planning includes identifying a knowledge gap, selecting an opportunity for learning, and searching for resources to address the knowledge gap
- Learning involves intense focus in which the learner internalizes new understandings and works to find the most effective way to resolve the cognitive dissonance that initiated the learning process.
- Assessing occurs when the learner tests out what they have learned and forms an opinion as to its effectiveness.
- Adjusting is the phase in which the learner takes their new knowledge, skill, and/or attitude and incorporates it into their routine practice.
Cutrer, W.B., Miller, B., Pusic, M.V., Mejicano, G., Mangrulkar, R.S., Gruppen, L.D., Moore, D. E. (2017). Fostering the Development of Master Adaptive Learners: A conceptual model to guide skill acquisition in medical education. Academic Medicine, 92(1), 70-75.
September 2019: Andragogy
The term andragogy is specific to the needs and motivations of adult learners. Popularized by educator Malcolm Knowles in the 1970s, the theory of andragogy is based on six assumptions about the adult learner.
- Adults are more self-directed as opposed to dependent on others to learn.
- Adults’ experiences provide a rich resource for learning new information.
- Adults are more ready to learn if the topic is related to their social or professional role (immediate relevancy).
- Adults are more problem than subject centered, preferring to learn information that is readily applicable to their lives.
- Adults are internally motivated.
- Adults need to know why they need to learn something (related to relevancy of information).
August 2019: Learning Management System
A learning management system is software that allows educators to organize and manage educational courses or training programs. Managing courses in a learning management system, or LMS, involves creating, changing, assigning, grading, and other administrative activities.
MCW currently has three learning management systems in place. Desire2Learn, or D2L, houses non-degree granting programs, such as graduate medical education and advanced practice provider programs. Brightspace, the updated interface for Desire2Learn, is used for degree granting programs, such as courses in the medical and pharmacy schools. PeopleFluent is used by Human Resources to manage personnel training and tracking.
May 2019: Flipped Classroom
A flipped classroom is one in which traditional lecture materials and content have been shifted outside of the classroom to reserve in-class time for content application activities (Australian Council for Private Education and Training, 2016).
In flipped classroom design, students complete pre-work (e.g., reading book chapters or articles, watching videos, listening to podcasts) and report to class prepared to discuss and work with the content. Application activities often involve small group work, in which students interact with one another and the material to foster deeper learning.
April 2019: Active Learning
Active learning refers to a broad range of educational approaches that seek to engage the learners in the educational process rather than have them serve in a passive role. In other words, active learning requires learners to interact with the material in meaningful ways. Such approaches often include students working together during class time but may also include activities such as individual work or personal reflection.
Unlike in a “traditional” setting, active learning requires students to do more than take notes and ask or respond to facilitator questions. However, incorporating active learning does not require the facilitator to abandon a lecture format completely. In fact, mixing in short active learning activities within a lecture can make that format more effective overall, allowing students the opportunity to check their understanding of a concept and seek clarification during the learning session.
March 2019: Standardized Patient
A Standardized Patient (SP) is a person trained to portray a patient in realistic and repeatable ways to simulate a specific medical condition or disease.
- SPs provide feedback on a learner’s performance from the perspective of the person they portray, related to interviewing skills and physical examinations. Learners also receive feedback on their ability to communicate empathically with patients.
- SPs allow a learner to practice taking a complete and focused history of a patient, as well as practice physical exam techniques.
- SPs continue to be a resource for practicing ultrasounds.
- SPs not only assist with teaching, they also provide opportunities for assessing a learner’s performance.
February 2019: Simulation-Based Medical Education (SBME)
Simulation-based medical education (SBME) bridges classroom learning and real-life clinical experiences.
SBME is a powerful standardized, objective and measurable teaching method used to instruct and test all levels of learners from any healthcare discipline to increase their competency as healthcare providers.
Different modalities of simulation are used, depending on the learning objective:
- Standardized Patients (SP) – Primarily used to train/test patient-provider communication skills. “SP’s” are also used to practice physical assessment, and as models for procedures such as ultrasound.
- Procedural Task Trainers – Allow trainees hands-on practice. An extensive range of skills, from simple IV placement to central line placement and intubation, are taught with trainers.
- Hi-Fidelity Simulators – Full-body manikins that mimic, at a very high level, human body functions. Used for immersive simulation experiences that provide a high level of interactivity and realism for the learner.
- Hybrid Simulation – Combining two or more simulation modalities to maximize effectiveness of a training session. (e.g. displaying simulated “sick” patient vital signs for otherwise healthy SPs patients to heighten realism).
Customized learning experience – SBME accommodates a wide range of learners from novices to experts, and an array of skills including knowledge-in-action, procedures, decision-making, and effective communication.
Patient and student safety – The simulated environment allows learners freedom to make mistakes without patient harm. By seeing the outcome of their mistakes and then debriefing, learners gain powerful insight and the opportunity to practice to “get it right”.
The STAR Center’s Simulation Professionals and State-of the-art Simulation Lab – STAR Center staff put their years of experience to work helping faculty develop SBME solutions to meet the educational objectives for their learners. Whether that solution means a fully-immersive Hi-Fidelity scenario in our Simulation lab or a simple learning activity that utilizes simulation, the STAR Center and staff are here to help you.
January 2019: Self-Directed Learning
Self-directed learning, or SDL, is defined by the following components (LCME Standard 6.3):
- Self-assess own learning needs
- Identify, analyze, and synthesize relevant information independently
- Appraise credibility of information
- Share information with peers and supervisors
- Receive feedback on their information-seeking skills
