Faculty Teaching Enrichment Series

The Faculty Teaching Enrichment Series offers evidence-based approaches to enhance individuals teaching and supervisory repertoires. Led by the Director of Faculty Development, the seminar series cluster under the following three areas: Active Learning Strategies, Assessment and Feedback and Student Engagement.

This series is available to all members of the Faculty of Dentistry who teach and/or interact with undergraduate or graduate students and professionals in continuing education.

The series Seminar participants will work closely with the Director of Faculty Development to enrich teaching and supervisory roles by receiving specific feedback, and by learning and practicing a variety of learner centred, inquiry based techniques. Each session will be approximately 1 to 1.5 hours and structured for individual participant needs.

A.    Active Learning Strategies

Active Learning strategies are intended to provide students with opportunities to discuss the classroom content materials, rehearse patient engagement and communication skills, design treatment plans, and how these can be understood in practice. These types of activities help students to continuously learn, discuss and make sense of core course materials, and how they can be used during their transition from classroom to clinical education as future dentists.

Learning Objectives:

  • Design a learner-centered course by identifying learners’ situational factors with course context and desired outcomes.
  • Develop course goals and learning objectives.

  • Apply lesson planning methods that allow selection / creation of learner-centered activities.

  • Create and/or design a learning evaluation plan for your course, including formative and summative assessment.

1.     Teaching Beyond PowerPoint

PowerPoint slides have become a main teaching modality in the medical sciences. These masterfully created presentations provide organized content materials to facilitate quick transmission of information. What they do lack, however, is often the ability to meaningfully engage students. This seminar focuses on increasing student engagement, collegiality and interaction through the building of a Community of Practice, and pragmatic techniques such as applied group projects, mini projects, and an opportunity to establish a different kind of teaching interaction with students.

Audience - Faculty lecturers, Grad Students

2.     Working in Groups

This session will explore the utilization of group work in class to assist students to generate ideas, make sense of new material, discuss issues and concerns, and to co-create projects and presentations. Methods to gather and capture the outcomes from the in class group work to add to the overall depth of understanding that can be achieved will also be discussed. In addition, we will discuss the purpose of group work, how to create highly functional and strong group dynamics and when to use or not use groups.  

Audience - All

3.     Lesson Planning

Lesson planning can be thought of as the art of strategically positioning course content within specific activities that reinforce the learning experience. This seminar will provide the considerations of bringing together a course, in both content and context. Consideration will be given to thinking differently about ways of presenting information to different audiences, with different teaching modalities.

Audience - Faculty lecturers, Grad Students

B.    Assessment & Feedback

Assessment and feedback are critical for the students’ success in their program. These seminars will be designed for instructors to consider how they might approach their assessment and feedback strategies to align specific kinds of teaching and expectations with their assessment strategies. Feedback will be discussed not only from teacher to the student but from the perspective of student to the teacher. The feedback from students can give us valuable insight into our teaching and how to make meaningful changes to our courses.

Learning Objectives:

  • Enhance knowledge and understanding of how assessment approaches align with course needs and outcomes.
  • Utilizing student feedback both informal (teacher formative feedback) and end of course evaluations to effect desired changes to course content and delivery.
  • Augment feedback and assessment delivery to optimize formative teaching opportunities.
  • Develop teaching styles that assist students through formative teaching approaches.

1.     Utilizing Student Course Evaluations

One source of feedback for staff regarding their teaching practices, style, or approaches is from student evaluations. These kinds of evaluations can be invaluable in telling us about our teaching styles, areas to improve, redundancy with other courses, and other aspects of student experience. However, we need to be able to take this data and interpret it into meaningful and actionable considerations for our teaching and faculty development. This seminar is designed for you get the most out of student evaluations and how to use this feedback effectively. We will also discuss formative assessment during the course of a semester so that making changes to our courses and / or teaching at various times through the term can be made and continual quality improvement reached.

Audience - All

2.     Assessing Your Assessment Strategies

Different types of teaching and learning require specific assessment strategies to align what and how something is being taught, with how students are being evaluated. This seminar focuses on making informed decisions about content and the best assessment modality to target it. Types of assessment beyond the often-utilized multiple-choice exams will be discussed.

Audience - All

3.     Constructive Feedback & Formative Teaching

Feedback is a means to help students understand and gauge their progression within a particular learning context. This seminar is focused on the art of constructive feedback in real time teaching. The intent is of this type of feedback is to build up learner confidence as knowledge through a formative teaching approach that identifies and explores how to use teachable moments effectively.

Audience - All

C.    Enhancing Student Engagement

Student engagement is a term that describes learning beyond the subject matter and recognizes that we are all responsible for the formation of confident and skilled dental professionals. This series takes into consideration not only how we teach the science of dentistry, but also implicitly or explicitly the art of dentistry in the formation of a dental professional identity. How students will interact with patients and other colleagues begins on the first day of their degree and is shaped through the ways in which we as staff engage / interact with them.

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the synchronistic relationship between student wellbeing and effective student learning.
  • Examine, share and reflect on proactive teaching strategies for supporting student wellbeing through teaching practices and classroom interventions.
  • Demonstrating a professional role model for students to support their transition in developing a professional identity.
  • Learn about and develop strategies to turn difficult situation into teaching opportunities for both the student(s) and teacher.

1.     Reflective Practice

The reflective practitioner is an old concept that has been gaining a renewed recognition in healthcare as a means to develop not only expertise in practice but also to learn from our experiences, patients, colleagues and others who affect our lives. This seminar will explore what reflection in and on practice means, and will explore the utility of reflexivity and reflection for teachers, students and practitioners. Meaningful ways to integrate this theory into clinical practice will be explored through a discussion of the importance, value, application and implications of reflection.

Audience: All

2.     Fostering Student Well Being

Within the university context, academic performance and professional success are highly dependent on students’ mental / emotional health and wellbeing. Faculty of Dentistry staff play an essential role in supporting mental / emotional wellbeing during their day-to-day interactions with students. This seminar will reflect on teaching practices and learning theories, and explore attitudes and possible interventions that are supportive and not diminishing to student mental / emotional wellbeing in the classroom and clinic.

Audience: All

3.     When Difficulties Arise in the Classroom or Clinic

This seminar will provide an opportunity to discuss difficult situations in the classroom or clinic, whether they occur with students, colleagues or patients. We will discuss how to interpret the situation and utilize decision-making strategies to change difficulties into teachable moments.  Ethical teaching and feedback, difficult conversations, disclosure, professional obligations and resolution options will also be discussed.

Audience: All

 

Other Offerings

The Director of Faculty Development is also available to provide consultation, collaboration, and other individualized supports for teaching and learning to increase success and satisfaction in academic teaching and supervisory roles. Services are available to all faculty members, clinical instructors, and graduate students.

For full details or to schedule a session please contact:

Richard.Hovey [at] mcgill.ca

 

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