1st Edition

Making Sense of Clinical Teaching A Hands-on Guide to Success

Edited By Samy Azer Copyright 2013

    Are you new to clinical teaching and looking for practical advice? Would you like to challenge and improve your current teaching style? Do you want to direct change in teaching practice within a department or institution?

    If your answer to any of the above is yes, then Making Sense of Clinical Teaching is the resource for you. It offers the novice and more experienced teacher concise advice in how to pinpoint and build upon existing strengths, address areas where confidence is lacking, develop mentoring skills, challenge existing practice, and influence strategic developments. Making Sense of Clinical Teaching will enable you to:

    • Add new skills to your teaching repertoire
    • Stimulate your creative thinking
    • Challenge current practice and facilitate the development of new strategies
    • Improve your coaching and mentoring skills and ultimately meet the needs of your students and improve their learning experience

    Be committed to your work
    Focus on the educational needs of your students
    Work with passion
    Uphold professional values
    Be enthusiastic about clinical teaching and learning

    Encourage an open and trusting environment

    Create a climate of trust
    Encourage students to learn from their mistakes
    Help students redefine failure as a learning experience
    Accept uncertainty in medicine
    Be accessible/available to students

    Interact and communicate with respect

    Communicate effectively with others
    Encourage input from others and give credit for contribution
    Act with integrity
    Provide a model of professional ethical standards
    Show a caring attitude

    Motivate students and co-workers

    Motivate your students to achieve their goals
    Monitor the progress of your students
    Motivate your co-workers
    Have a good sense of humor

    Encourage and appreciate diversity

    Do not stereotype or speak negatively of others
    Nurture and encourage diversity
    Seek and encourage understanding of and respect for people of diverse backgrounds
    Enforce equal opportunities in day-to-day practices
    Maintain positive relationships with students

    Bring a wide range of skills and talents to teaching

    Use a wide range of teaching/learning approaches
    Stimulate higher order thinking skills
    Present difficult concepts comprehensibly
    Encourage appropriate evidence to a critique
    Teach memorably
    Model a close doctor-patient relationship
    Use education in community development

    Foster critical thinking

    Teach students how to think, not what to think
    Explore with probing questions
    Discuss ideas in an organized fashion
    Help students to focus on key issues
    Train students to think strategically

    Encourage creative work

    Motivate students to create new ideas
    Foster innovations and new approaches
    Show enthusiasm for creative ideas

    Emphasize teamwork

    Encourage students to work in groups
    Encourage collaborative and inter-professional learning
    Encourage links at national and international levels in education

    Provide positive feedback

    Listen to your students and discover their educational needs
    Value students; never belittle them
    Provide constructive feedback and formative assessment
    Help and support your students to grow
    Teach your students how to monitor their own progress

    Seek continually to improve your teaching skills

    Seek to learn and incorporate new skills
    Seek feedback and criticism
    Keep up to date in your specialty
    Use technology to facilitate teaching and learning
    Monitor your progress

    Demonstrate leadership in teaching

    Contribute to course design and structure
    Contribute to publications on education
    Develop self-development in an education context
    Demonstrate creativity in teaching strategies
    Be committed to professional development
    Share in managing changes in curriculum and educational needs

    Contribute to appreciate the value of research

    Use evidence-based teaching in enhancing clinical teaching skills
    Contribute to research in clinical education
    Encourage students to undertake research and publish their work

    Biography

    Samy A. Azer, Professor of Medical Education, Chair of the Medical Education Research & Development Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia

    Visiting Professor of Medical Education, School of Medicine, University of Toyama, Japan