Browsing by Subject "Faculty Learning Communities"

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    Building Faculty Learning Communities for Medical Education Scholarship in a Multi-Campus System: Four Years of Experience
    (2024-04) Kochhar, Komal; Longtin, Krista; Wilson, Shawn; Ho, Monling; Brokaw, James; Hobson, Tara; Wallach, Paul
    The Indiana University School of Medicine employs a large geographically distributed system of medical education composed of 8 regional medical campuses and the main medical campus in Indianapolis. An inherent challenge is being able to provide relevant faculty development opportunities across the state. Beginning Fall of 2019, we implemented Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) specifically designed to develop faculty competence in medical education research. Each FLC team consisted of 4-6 medical educators engaged in a collaborative educational research project led by an experienced faculty mentor. In addition to the group work, participants were expected to attend a series of monthly seminars to build foundational skills in educational research. To date, 69 medical educators (both preclinical/clinical) have participated in 13 FLC teams. To assess participant satisfaction, surveys were administered at the mid-point and end of each FLC team’s term (68% cumulative response rate). By the end of their term, approximately half of the participants had submitted their work for publication or presentation. A successful FLC program requires strong administrative oversight and organization but can easily be replicated elsewhere.
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    Faculty Learning Communities: A Collaborative Model for Professional Development of Medical Educators in our Multi-Campus System, 2019 to Present
    (2024) Kochhar, Komal; Longtin, Krista; WIlson, Shawn; Ho, Monling; Hobson, Tara; Holley, Matthew; Brokaw, James; Wallach, Paul
    Background The Indiana University School of Medicine employs a large geographically distributed system of medical education composed of 8 regional medical campuses and the main medical campus in Indianapolis. Medical educators need targeted faculty development programs to give them the skills necessary to produce educational scholarship for promotion and tenure. An inherent challenge of operating such a large multi-campus system is being able to provide relevant professional development opportunities for all our medical educators across the state. Objective To provide relevant professional development opportunities for all medical education faculty across our large multi-campus system statewide. Methods Beginning the Fall of 2019, we implemented Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) specifically designed to develop faculty competence in medical education research. All medical school faculty across our statewide system were eligible to participate. Each FLC team consisted of 4-6 medical educators engaged in a collaborative educational research project led by an experienced faculty mentor. The FLC teams met monthly via Zoom over a 2-year term to establish priorities, share ideas, distribute the workload, and produce the scholarly product(s). In addition to the group work, participants were expected to attend a series of monthly webinars to build foundational skills in educational research. Results To date, 63 medical educators (both preclinical/clinical) have participated in 13 FLC teams. To assess participant satisfaction, surveys were administered at the mid-point and at the end of each FLC team’s term (68% cumulative response rate). Averaged across all teams, a majority of respondents:  Rated their FLC experience as “Good” to “Excellent” (81%)  “Strongly agreed” or “agreed” that the FLC process met their professional development needs (73%)  Were interested in participating in future FLC teams (65%) By the end of their term, about one-half of the participants had submitted their work for publication or presentation. Conclusion By participating in FLCs, medical educators from the regional campuses and main campus were able to effectively collaborate on projects of mutual interest. In our experience, FLCs provide a cost-effective and sustainable model for developing medical educators. Although lack of protected time may be an impediment for clinician participation, this can be partially mitigated by requiring the clinical chair’s approval before joining an FLC team.
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    Implementation of Faculty Learning Communities to Support Medical Education Scholarship in a Regional Campus System
    (Minnesota Libraries Publishing, 2023) Kochhar, Komal; Longtin, Krista; Wilson, Shawn; Ho, Monling; Brokaw, James; Wallach, Paul
    Introduction: Medical educators need targeted faculty development programs to give them the skills necessary to produce educational scholarship for promotion and tenure. At the Indiana University School of Medicine, which encompasses a large regional campus system, we implemented Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) to provide a platform for medical educators to engage in a collaborative, year-long educational research project facilitated by a faculty member well-versed in educational research. Methods: 18 faculty participants were assigned to one of 4 FLC groups, which met monthly from 2019 to 2020. The participants also attended a series of one-hour monthly educational seminars designed to build foundational skills in educational research. To assess program effectiveness, participants were surveyed at 6 months and 18 months after the start of the program. Results: 94% of participants completed the 6-month survey and 56% completed the 18-month survey. A majority of respondents at both time-points (88% and 60%, respectively) agreed or strongly agreed that the FLC process met their professional development needs to help move their educational scholarship forward. At the time of the 18-month survey, 50% of respondents had submitted their work for presentation at a regional or national conference or for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, with the remainder intending to do so. Discussion: The inaugural offering of this FLC program has established a successful and sustainable model for developing medical educators. By employing the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle for process improvement, several changes to the program have already been instituted that should further bolster the scholarly productivity of our medical educators.