The Essence of Education Scholarship - Building Capacity Amongst Faculty
Penciner R, Christofilos V, Stoller R, Freeman R. Emergent curriculum design: A longitudinal interprofessional education scholarship faculty development program. International Conference on Faculty Development. Helsinki, Finland. Presented at:
International Conference on Faculty Development. Helsinki, Finland. August 2017
Canadian Conference on Medical Education. Winnipeg Canada. April 2017
What we know …
Education Scholarship is valued and expected of physicians and health care professionals in community academic affiliated hospitals. However the context in which these clinicians teach and practice is very different than those in Academic Health Science Centres. We addressed this gap by developing a longitudinal interprofessional education scholarship faculty development program called ESSNCE. The construct of emergent curriculum design was embedded to enhance its success.
What we did …
We developed a 16 month longitudinal faculty development education scholarship program for physicians and health care professionals at a community academic hospital. Participants were mentored through the process from developing an idea to completion of an education scholarship project.
The 3 components of ESSENCE were:
- a core curriculum of 10 monthly workshops utilizing Glassick’s criteria as a framework;
- provision of a local coaches for each participant, and
- consultations with education
The goals of ESSENCE were to:
- develop basic competencies in education scholarship and
- create an interprofessional community of practice.
A program evaluation was conducted using mixed methods targeting participants, coaches and scientists. The evaluation was embedded in the curriculum to model education scholarship by the investigators and support the construct of emergent curriculum design.
What we found …
14 participants from 6 professions started the program
8 participants from 4 professions completed the program
Themes Identified from the program evaluation
High quality workshops
"Interactive, stimulating and relevant"
High level of support
“Enjoyed the "checking in" - opportunity to discuss what is working well and challenges we're facing.”
Need for more personalized & structured support
"Feeling a bit overwhelmed"
Competing demands
“There have been multiple unanticipated & time sensitive demands that have prevented me from devoting attention to this scholarly pursuit”
What we learned …
There is interest, need, and value in such a program of education scholarship within a community setting. However, we need to adapt the curricular approach to reflect the practical realities (e.g., time barriers) and difficulty in attaining broad competence in education scholarship. We need to provide more structure, personalized guidance, in an effort to limit anxiety about scholarship, and promote continuity across sessions for future iterations.