VOL 2, No 10, November 2000
Faculty 'Improving Presentation Skills'
It's elementary. Teachers teach, and students learn. There's the lecture, the notes and the dreaded test.College of Medicine faculty who took the Apple Tree Society's Faculty Development Interest Survey know it's not quite that elementary. In fact, as a result of the survey, faculty are participating in a Teach the Teachers Program that in November delivered what they requested. The topic: “Improving Presentation Skills.”
“The response was great,” said Amy Blue, Ph.D.
Blue, who is assistant dean for curriculum evaluation in the College of Medicine, said that the program pulls together the teaching skills of the college’s faculty in a way that allows them to share what works best and solve common problems.
Dr.
Medio leads his adult learners into the topics, teaching them ways to improve
their presentations while demonstrating those interactive techiques in
the process. Dr. George "Vanna" Tempel records audience responses on a
flip chart.
Blue, Frank Medio, Ph.D., the college's assistant dean for graduate medical education, and biochemistry and molecular biology professor Bill Stillway, Ph.D., are co-directors of MUSC's Apple Tree Society. The society is a universitywide group whose mission is to increase awareness of good teaching skills and scholarship in the area of teaching.
Medio, with physiology professor George Tempel, Ph.D., covered how principles of contemporary adult education can be used to improve classroom-based instruction, elements of effective lectures, how to increase “active participation” during large group presentations, and how to design lectures as “interactive” vehicles for learning.
“They loved it. It went really well,” said Tempel, who bills himself as the program's ‘Vanna White’ to Medio, who hosts the show.
“I think we teachers need to learn that the students we are getting are the products of an educational system that operates on the active involvement of the student with the lecturer-facilitator. We can work with somebody for 20 minutes and in that time, their mind is soaring ahead of where we were. We have to know how to bring them back to the learning process.”
This
is a class? Looks like chaos. No, it's what happens after Dr. Medio invites
them to discuss answers to a question he asks. They learn from each other.
The secret, said Medio, is to make learning a “fun activity.”
Harking to past learning experiences, Medio challenged the program participants to recall a teacher who effectively connected with subject matter and students. “What stood out? What did that teacher do?”
Tempel kept the list on a flip chart: Specific points, reinforced; relaxed atmosphere; surprise and change of pace; appropriate humor; animated, moved around; visual aids and props; interaction with the students; learn together.
Medio summed it up: “Design opportunities for the students to interact with the information.” And here's a concept: “People can learn from each other.”
But watch out for the 10 common traps that produce poor lectures, he said.
“But there’s only nine in the list!” came the objection.
“That's the 10th trap,” Medio shot back. “Don't fall into the trap of making a mistake in your handout. It's distracting. You have two overriding guidelines: Maintain audience attention and avoid distracting them from what you have to say.”
Abandoning
the safety of the podium, Dr. Medio interacts with his audience in a way
that allows them to learn together.
And who is the teacher and who is the learner here? Medio said that as adults everyone is both a teacher and a learner. The adult teaching model often referred to as “andragogy” is learner-centered, in contrast to the child model, “pedagogy,” which is teacher-centered. It recognizes each person as an individual whose educational needs can be determined and established together with the ‘facilitator.’ Instead of pumping factual knowledge, the facilitator’s curriculum is centered on problem-solving skills and is characterized by interactive exchange of knowledge that can be put to immediate use.
“Why should I learn this?” Medio asked, putting the teacher in the learner’s place. “That's a question every teacher should answer. That question forces the teacher to respond, ‘What can I do to teach them what is relevant, practical and useful instead of just giving them a list of esoteric points?’ In this mode, the learner is driving the teacher.”
Also, the adult learner accumulates experience that becomes a resource for learning, and develops a readiness to learn in order to cope with real-life situations. The adult learner learns most effectively in task or problem-centered instruction, has a concept of being responsible for personal decisions and of being self-directing, and—most important—has an internal desire to improve and be successful.
“Ultimately, the responsibility for learning lies with the learner, not the teacher,” Medio said.
But the teacher as facilitator can enhance learning by making presentations more interactive and by learning how to ask better questions and how to use questions more effectively.
“How you teach —the techniques you use—helps people acquire information, but it also develops their teaching skills, helps them learn professional behaviors and establishes in them self-directed, independent learning patterns. It focuses them to change their learning habits and behavior,” Medio said.
Medio ended the presentation with a “hybrid approach” —a focused, interactive
presentation. His aim, he said, was to debunk the myth that just because
they have the knowledge base, they can teach. His point: Without knowing
how to teach, teachers can't help learners learn.
Ten presentation traps — (minus one)
1—Talking too long: The normal attention span is from 10
to 20 minutes, so limit ‘talk time’ and focus on a single topic. Longer
talks should be divided into separate presentations.
2—Creating information overload: Focus on three important ‘take home’ points to be learned and understood. Avoid focusing on the amount of information presented.
3—Failing to establish a common base: Create a sense of collegiality with the audience by using relevant examples from shared experiences. Present information in the context it will be used (i.e., clinical applications). Use common metaphors and analogies to promote understanding of principles and concepts that are difficult to visualize. Simplify complex information.
4—Distracting your audience from listening: Jargon words and phrases, and graphs and charts that are difficult to read or interpret become obstacles to learning.
5—Failing to connect with individuals: Get to know people by name. This personalizes the encounter, but use first names only with permission.
6—Using humor that bombs: Better to avoid humor than to suffer the disastrous consequences of using it incorrectly. Leave humor to the experts. If you do use humor you are on safe grounds if you poke fun at yourself or your specialty.
7—Failing to highlight important points: State the objectives at the beginning, use transition statements from topic to topic, and summarize.
8—Asking unclear and confusing questions: Know why you are asking the question, match the question to the reason for asking it, ask one question at a time, pause for a response, and respond to stimulate further discussion.
9—Upsetting, intimidating or belittling others: Convey respect by speaking in a pleasant tone, making eye contact, use open and friendly body posture, avoid offensive or derogatory words, avoid threatening looks and gestures, paraphrase comments to ensure understanding, listen attentively, and acknowledge feelings without making a judgment.
Sheer bulk of information forcing changes
Unchanged since the early 1900s, traditional medical education faces the next century with a technology-driven information explosion that promises to revolutionize the way medicine is taught.The revolution will come sooner for some medical schools than for others, and some will embrace the changes more readily, but come it will. Associate dean for student affairs Victor Del Bene, M.D. has only to reach for his Palm Pilot hand-held computer to demonstrate.
Stylus in hand and with a touch of a few points on the credit-card-sized screen he retrieves all the latest drug information a physician could need.
Pointing to his 1999 Physicians Desk Reference on the shelf, he said, “All that is in this.”
But his point is not the wonders of technology. It’s the sheer bulk of information that traditional curriculum still attempts to cram into student skulls year after year.
It's plain to see—medical education has to shift from its information-intensive, department-based curriculum to one that espouses continual, lifelong learning supported by information retrieval skills and medical knowledge that is comfortable crossing specialty lines.
In what may become a modern-day Flexner Report, the Association of American Medical Colleges has published “The Education of Medical Students: Ten Stories of Curriculum Change,” supported by the Milbank Memorial Fund. MUSC's College of Medicine story, written by Del Bene, is among the 10.
“The studies presented in this report describe in some detail the changes occurring in the education of medical students in 10 U.S. medical schools and the dynamics of the curriculum reform process at those schools,” wrote Michael E. Whitcomb, M.D., senior vice president, Division of Medical Education at the AAMC.
In an AAMC survey of all U.S. medical schools, it has become evident that the 10 schools featured in the report are typical of a national trend toward “major changes in the structure and organization of the curriculum, adopting innovative pedagogical strategies for enhancing students' learning, improving the methods used to assess students’ performance and focusing greater attention on the professional development of faculty as teachers and educators.”
Unfortunately, Whitcomb finds that the majority of curriculum changes occur in the first two years, with little to no innovative change in the largely department-dominated years three and four.
“At MUSC over the past 10 years, we have moved much of our third- and fourth-year clinical training into outpatient and community settings,” Del Bene said. “That's where the suitable patients are.” He explained that most inpatients at MUSC are already diagnosed and undergoing specialty care, whereas the outpatient and community settings provide opportunities to develop skills for interacting with patients and diagnosing illnesses.
Of the decision to begin curriculum changes, Del Bene wrote in the report: “The entire medical landscape appeared to be changing and so were the needs and demands of the individual and society. The faculty was concerned about the public's devaluation of personal physicians. The faculty recognized the growing needs and demands for care of diverse populations (such as the elderly and under-insured). It saw a need for reemphasis on disease prevention and public health, for education about prac-
Graduate Medical Eduction
Core Curriculum Lecture SeriesDinner is provided at Thursday sessions; lunch is provided at Friday sessions.
December
1
11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Professionalism
Solomon Auditorium, Gazes Building
7
4 - 6 p.m.
Preparing Your 2000 Income Taxes
2 West Amphitheater
8
11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.
CDs, IRAs, Loans and Mortgages
Room 601 Clinical Science Building Conference Room
14
4 - 6 p.m.
Evidence-Based Medicine
2 West Amphitheater
15
11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Evidence-Based Medicine
2 West Amphitheater
To register, call Angela Ybarra at 792-0761, or Ginger Blanchard at 792-9304.
Continuing Medical Education
The following conferences are sponsored by MUSC. All conferences are to be held in Charleston unless otherwise noted.December
1 - 3
3rd Annual Frontiers in Pediatrics
Doubletree Guest Suites Hotel
2001
March
19 - 21
OB/GYN Spring Symposium
Charleston Place Hotel
26 - 27
11th Charleston Pulmonary Update
Charleston Place Hotel
April
16 - 18
2nd Annual Issues in Women’s Health
Charleston Place Hotel
Call the Office of Continuing Medical Education at 876-1925 for more information.
Teaching Tips
From “Improving Your Presentation Skills: Tips to Avoid 9 Common Traps,” by Franklin, J. Medio, Ph.D.TRAP—Distracting Your Audience from Listening—Be careful not to interfere with your audience's ability to listen. Two common ways to distract your audience are: 1) using “jargon” words and phrases and 2) presenting graphs or charts that are difficult to read and/or interpret. Define technical or complex terms in common language (i.e., “by this I mean...”). If a visual aid does not make a concept easier to understand, then you are better off not using it. Remember: Information presented visually and verbally is retained longer than information presented through only one modality but, too much visual information, like too many spoken words, can be confusing and an obstacle to learning.
TRAP—TALKING TOO LONG—Remember that the normal attention span is 10 to 20 minutes, no matter how entertaining you are or interesting your subject may be. It is a good practice to limit your “talk-time” accordingly and focus on one topic at a time. When you are scheduled to speak for 30 minutes or more, divide your talk into separate 15 to 20 minute presentations each covering one topic.
Don't miss this
Dec. 1Deadline for proposal submission for AAMC Southern Group on Educational Affairs 2001 Meeting
Proposal submission materials for “Teaching, Learning and Knowing in 2001: An Odyssey for Outcomes” are now available. Workshops, presentations, poster and small-group discussion sessions are welcomed. The meeting will be held March 22 - 24, 2001, in Little Rock, Ark.
For submission information, call Dr. Amy Blue at 792-3409.
2001
Jan. 21 - 23
AAMC Curriculum Leaders Professional Development Conference
Savannah, Ga.
For information, call Dr. Amy Blue at 792-3409.
The Medical Educator is written by Dick Peterson,
Public Relations