READ | TEACHING @ | TEACHING CONTEXTS
Instructor of Record | Instructional Team | Seminar | Studio | Clinical | One-on-One | Course/TA Supervisor | Knowing Your Audience
Teaching in the Clinical Setting
Clinical teaching typically occurs within the professional disciplines, such as medicine, allied health, dentistry, nursing, law, pharmacy, and optometry. Instructors typically are clinical faculty, instructors, or preceptors. Within this teaching context, there are specific characteristics of effective instructors, such as being confident in your clinical skills and being comfortable with ambiguity. The following are teaching issues to consider before teaching in the clinical setting.
Know Your Students
Knowing that there are diverse learning styles and preferences among your students is important. Equally critical to student success is knowing how these learning styles and preferences are positively or negatively impacted by specific situations in the clinical setting. How will your own learning preferences influence your teaching styles, both positively and negatively? What are possible ways of finding out your students' learning preferences?First, you will want to get to know your students. Different approaches can help elicit information about your students' backgrounds and confidence levels before they work with patients. You will also want to determine your students' "weak" areas. Some ideas include
- Create a First Day assessment sheet for students to complete
- On the assessment, ask students to write about their skills, clinical experiences, and coursework
- If you have the opportunity to attend a corresponding course to the clinical experience, try to attend early in the quarter
- Ask students questions about what they perceive to be their weaknesses
- Ask students about their expectations of the clinical rotation
- Early on in the rotation, ask students to describe what they see, and to verbalize their thought processes as they go through diagnosis and treatment plans.
Teaching Strategies
A wide variety of techniques can be used to help your students learn skills, many of which will be highly dependent on the type of rotation, location, skill level, and discipline. Some strategies to consider include- When demonstrating a skill, work through each step in the sequence so students can see the progression and combination of smaller skill sets
- Verbalize your thought processes while demonstrating skills
- Have students practice skills in small groups
- Videotape students and then view the tape together, pointing out specific areas for the students to observe
- Observe students while they work with patients
- Have students rehearse by using case presentations
- Probe for understanding when providing feedback to students
- Ask students to reflect and provide self-assessments on their skill development
- Discuss the consequences of alternative actions that students can make
Asking good questions of students is possibly the best teaching tool a clinical instructor can have. The Arizona Area Health Education Center (2003) organizes questions around four themes:
focused: "What questions would you ask this patient?"
leading: "Under what circumstances would you give this patient this medication?"
open: "What do you think is going on with this patient?"
reflective: "How comfortable were you with working with this patient?"
Assessing Student Performance
One of the most important steps in assessing the performance of your students is to first establish what you want to measure. Asking yourself, "What makes a good clinician?" is a good way to start a list of characteristics that you can then use to create a rubric. Consider the typical progression that students go through in your professional program, as well as the realistic expectations for students' skill levels. You will also need to determine how (and if) you will communicate these to your students. One possibility is to include your rubric, along with expectations you have of students, on a "welcome sheet" provided on the first day of the class.A wide variety of both quantitative and qualitative assessments are typically used in the clinical setting. Using verbal and written evaluations may provide complementary yet differing types of feedback. Regardless of which assessment tools are used, the feedback provided to students should be frequent and specific, and offer positives and critiques regarding their performance. Most helpful to students are assessment processes that emphasize and promote timely and ongoing evaluations. Feedback also should address what students need to focus on in the future and how well they are progressing in specific skills. In your evaluation, don't be tempted to avoid providing honest feedback, however difficult--because without it, your students won't ever learn the skills necessary to be a professional in your field.
Additional information about learning styles, teaching strategies, and assessment, as well as how to balance student learning with patient safety, can be found in The Clinical Teaching Handbook, edited by Hudson & Watson (2002) at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Public Health. You can find this resource in the university library or by contacting Andy Hudson in the Office of Medical Education.
 previous page |
