The COVID-19 pandemic has changed education on every level, from preschool to medical school, to continuing medical education. Who would have thought we would ever be forced to cancel all our regional and national meetings! But, these forces that put a hold on familiar events also made room for something new. The pandemic has speared a revolution in how education is provided in medical school and thereafter.
The shift to virtual education forced me to look at my teaching and lecturing style with the audience gone. Without the feedback from faces either focusing on me or browsing their phones, I lost the connection that energized my talk, that let me know whether they were with me or not. I knew which points were clear as mud and which needed elaboration. I was lost staring at my computer screen while everyone’s cameras were off, most likely to check emails, but they left their microphones on. This is not an article about Zoom etiquette, but rather about how I had to design a lecture to engage my audience, grab their attention and get them to participate.
Most of us have given lectures for our entire lives, or at least it seems that way. You have a few topics and slides ready to go. You might update them from one speaking engagement to another. You have the routine down, your jokes ready and feel pretty confident. But are you engaging your audience? Do they actively participate or are they passive receptors of your teaching? I want to challenge you to leave your comfort zone and incorporate teaching techniques that challenge the audience to become active learners. Bonwell and Eison define active learning strategies as “instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing.” Use this framework to evaluate how students encounter, engage and reflect on the content. Recall, elaboration, generation and reflection are active learning techniques that you can foster in your audience with active teaching techniques. Here are my top three:
1. Polling is a quick, easy way to check the opinions, attitudes or thought processes of the audience. It is also a great way to get to know the audience and adjust the depth of your lecture accordingly. One of my favorite exercises is to get a small group to post a simple yes or no to questions and then have the students of the two camps argue their points and defend their answers (using breakout rooms on Zoom for larger audiences). Zoom offers a polling If on a different platform or delivering in person, many web-based platforms are available. I use Poll Everywhere, which allows word clouds and message boards that can be icebreakers at the beginning of a talk.
2. A minute paper is a short “paper,” more of a statement, which students individually complete in response to a question. For example: “What is the main application of the material we discussed today? What questions do you have about today’s class? What is the most important thing you learned today? You can use Google Docs or a message board from Poll Everywhere in a virtual teaching space. A minute paper provides students with opportunities to reflect on course content and their self-awareness as learners. It allows you to quickly check students’ knowledge or get feedback about your teaching. You can assign minute papers at the beginning, middle or end of an online session.
3. Think, Pair, Share is an active learning strategy that involves posing a short problem or clinical scenario to the audience. Give them time to think through the problem individually, then pair them up to discuss and share their findings or takeaways with the class. I love to have neurosurgery students fill out a consent form after I present them with a case or to write the assessment and plan portion of a consult note. With Google Docs, students can work on the document simultaneously. This strategy gives students time to process and apply their knowledge and skills on their own first, plus the opportunity to consult and collaborate with a peer.
Try these strategies tomorrow on rounds. Try them tomorrow in the operating room. Try them with your kids after you watch a movie together or during dinner conversation. Apply them yourself when studying or learning something new.
Virtual teaching propelled me to apply active teaching techniques to establish the lost connection with my audience and students. Once you face the challenge of active teaching, you will hesitate to go back to your stale one-way lecture. I am convinced that one of the positive consequences of our foray into virtual teaching is that we will continue to embrace active teaching techniques when we return to classrooms and lecture halls.
#MedEd @martinastippler #VirtualTeaching #MakeItStick
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