Wiki Page, OB/Gyn Residency - ACT: Module 3: Creating a Positive Learning Environment

Wiki Page
2016-07-06T10:05:00-06:00

Learning Objectives:

Through course activities, readings, discussions, and assigned projects learners will be able to:

Demonstrate active listening through video scenarios by correctly identifying the behaviors that create a positive learning environment.

Distinguish between behaviors that promote and destroy a positive learning environment.

Evaluate three clinical scenarios and classify the behaviors that create a positive learning environment.

This is Important Because…

Medical student mistreatment in the third year of medical school is a well documented and recurrent issue. The issue has been brought to the publics attention through national publications like the New York Times piece on "The Bullying Culture of Medical Schools". It is also recognized within the community of medical education through articles like the "Longtime culture of mistreating students persists at medical schools" in American Medical News and the graduate questionnaire distributed through the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Attempts are currently underway to remedy this issue, however it is still happening all too frequently as evidence in the AAMC graduate survey and massive amounts of student blogs written on this issue. As one medical blogger put it recently, "bullying is not a necessary evil of training doctors". In order to shift the environment new tools of motivating students and promoting learning need to be provided. This module provides Clinical Educators with models and theories of student motivation, in addition to a checklist that can be used in interactions with learners to determine whether or not a positive learning environment is present and what steps can be taken to create such an environment.

Some of the Benefits of Creating a Positive Learning Environment Include

Improve patient safety and care – Medical students that learn early on not to admit to mistakes or a lack of medical knowledge are more likely to commit medical errors and less likely to work in cooperation with other medical professionals. Admitting mistakes and/or lack of knowledge without fear of retribution allows medical students to learn and protects patients, as mistakes can be corrected and lack of knowledge addresses through education.

Promotes learning – A positive learning environment invites learners to ask questions and contribute to the medical decisions being made by the team. Learners feel more confident in what they do know and are not afraid to admit what they don't know, so that where they have a deficiency in knowledge they can be given additional opportunities to learn.

How this Module Connects to the Other Modules:

Now that you know how to design a learning encounter (module 2), it is important to learn how to create a positive learning environment

This module will build on the previous module by reinforcing the pedagogical practices of advanced clinical educators. A positive learning environment allows clinical educators to accomplish the more advanced teaching tasks of a clinical educator, like providing effective feedback (module 4) and teaching clinical reasoning (module 5).

The Indian proverb, "there is no point in giving a man a rose to smell after you've cut off his nose" holds true in the learning environment, if a positive learning environment is not in place very little education will occur. The education that does occur will be easily overshadowed by negative role models and the environment.

Go through the following presentation made in Prezi to learn more about the tools that can be used to create a learning environment that motivates students.

Click on the picture to the left to start the presentation.

Creating a Positive Learning Environment Module

Complete the interactive module by reviewing the content presented in the module and completing the practice activities. Submit the feedback form with your name and program to receive completion credit for this module. The link for the feedback form is located on the final page of the module and will only be accessible once all module activities have been satisfactorily completed.

Module completion will be logged in the gradebook within 24 hours after the feedback form has been submitted. If you do not see credit for a module you completed, please submit a screenshot of the final page of the feedback form for that module.

Direct any technical questions or concerns to the program manager, Monica.Bailey@ucf.edu.

Click the image below to enter the Creating a Positive Learning Environment module. You will be brought to another page in the course.

Resources for creating a positive learning environment

The module highlights different aspects of the following articles. Read the articles for further information on how to create a positive learning environment.

Chan, D. (2002). Development of the Clinical Learning Environment Inventory: using the theoretical framework of learning environment studies to assess nursing students' perceptions of the hospital as a learning environment. Journal of nursing education, 41(2), 69-75.

Chan, D. (2003). Validation of the Clinical Learning Environment Inventory. Western journal of nursing research, 25(5), 519-532.

Jackson, J.L., O’Malley, P.G., Salerno, S.M., Kroenke, K. (2002). The teacher and learner interactive assessment system (TeLIAS): A new tool to assess teaching behaviors in the ambulatory setting. Teaching and learning in medicine, 14(4), 249-256.

James, P.A., Kreiter, C.D., Shipengrover, J. & Crosson, J. (2002). Identifying the attributes of instructional quality in ambulatory teaching sites: A validation study of the MedEdIQ. Family medicine, 34(4), 268-273.

James, P.A., Osborne, J.W. (1999). A measure of medical instructional quality in ambulatory settings: The MedIQ. Educational research and methods, 31(4) 263-269).

Litzelman, D.K., Stratos, G.A., Marriott, D.J. & Skeff, K.M. (1998). Factorial validation of a widely disseminated educational framework for evaluating clinical teachers. Academic Medicine, 73(6) 688-695.

Smith, S., Dunham, L., Dekhtyar, M., Dinh, A., Lanken, P., Moynahan, K., Stuber, M., Skochelak, S. (2016). Medical Student Perceptions of the Learning Environment: Learning Communities Are Associated With a More Positive Learning Environment in a Multi-Institutional Medical School Study. Academic Medicine, First Published Online.

Srinivasan, M. et al. (2011). “Teaching as a competency”: Competencies for medical educators. Academic Medicine, 86(10), 1211-1220.

*There are several resources and models that are used in clinical education. If you are familiar with resources that are not listed above please share them on the resources discussion board and I will add it for future residents.

Assignments

1. Readings:

Module 3 and associated articles

2. Practice and Application

Module activities must be completed by Friday January 29, 2015.

Complete module:

Checklist Activity: Review the three videos depicting a typical encounter between a clinical educator and their learner. Use the provided checklist to identify characteristics of a positive learning environment. After selecting the items you took note of in the videos, compare your analysis with the one provided. Consider how you can include items from the checklist in your own practice.

Complete Feedback Form: Provide us with programmatic feedback to improve the module activities and scenarios.

The checklist activity is not graded however they will need to be completed along with the feedback form in order to receive a certificate of completion.