As I come to the end of my participation in the Teaching Certificate Program, the growth I have made as an educator is apparent. Before the program started, I was adept at creating well organized presentations. My weakness as an educator included offering quality feedback, wordiness, and the lack of varied teaching methods. I believe I have improved these weaknesses through this program. As both a preceptor and co-preceptor, I have honed my feedback skills. Becoming more confident in my suggestions and providing specific ways to improve eased the difficulty of giving feedback. I have actively tried to trim lectures to include only the essential material in order to eliminate wordiness. I have evaluated my progress through the feedback I have received from learners. Finally, I have made a conscious effort to incorporate more active learning exercises into my lectures. I have had success doing this in the larger lectures. The various experiences I have been offered through this program have sped my development as an educator.
Strengths
Teaching Methods
While this was initially one of my weakness, I have made significant progress. I identified the need to incorporate more personalized instruction as one of my teaching goals. I have actively tried to incorporate varying teaching methods into my lectures and interactions. I have included Kahoot games, patient cases, hands-on instruction, and images/diagrams as teaching methods. I have received only positive feedback from these activities. When learners were asked which part of the presentation was most helpful, the top response has been the patient cases. When asked what additional information students would have appreciated during the presentation, additional patient cases and diagrams have been among the answers. I believe this demonstrates that the different methods I have incorporated have been helpful to the learners.
Time Management
Time management has always been my strength. My residency preceptor director has confirmed this by saying, “Jeff has done an outstanding job managing his time. He makes lists of tasks and marks them off as they are complete.” I have made this a priority by incorporating it into my contingency plan for developing concise, organized, and effective presentations. I have never had any issue meeting the presentation deadlines. I have often had ample time to review my materials many times before presenting which has allowed me to streamline the material. Because of this time management, I have consistently been able to receive feedback from my teaching mentors or program director concerning edits or additions that would make the presentations better.
Approachability
As an educator, I have tried to make myself as accessible as possible. My goal has been for my learners to feel comfortable enough to be willing to ask questions. Through my precepting opportunities and my experience supervising nursing students, I believe I have fostered this approachability. The nursing students appeared willing to ask me questions about the COVID-19 vaccine if there was an uncertainty. The pharmacy staff has also been willing to approach me whenever they have a specific question about the vaccine. This approachability has made teaching easier as the learners and my fellow co-workers are willing to approach me providing an additional educational opportunity.
Weaknesses/Challenges
Preparation time
I tend to strive for perfection in every task I undertake. While this tends to be a good thing, it can lead to large investments of time spent on smaller tasks. The COVID-19 testing lecture was on a developing topic. Because of the nature of this topic, many hours were invested into collecting and organizing information. This was an earlier presentation during the teaching certificate program, and I improved throughout. The other large group presentation, Oral Pain and Discomfort, did not take as long to formulate due to the more readily available information. I have certainly improved in the efficiency with which I am able to construct a lecture, but I need to be able to sift through materials faster when putting a lecture together that does not have well-established guidelines. There is still room to improve in this area.
Assertiveness
This weakness is one I was aware of coming into the program. I have worked hard at improving this area by thinking through what I am going to say during a feedback session beforehand. My goal was to provide positive feedback at both the beginning and ending of feedback sessions. These actions have helped make me more assertive. My greatest growth occurred when I ran the COVID-19 Vaccination Clinic. As the person in charge of the clinic, I was forced to be more assertive. I learned that I can certainly be assertive when I am comfortable in the situation. In order to be more assertive, I need to ensure that I am comfortable in the situation beforehand.
My ability to assess learners has improved throughout the program. When lecturing, I use either Kahoot games or patient cases to assess learning on the spot. This proved to be an effective method whenever utilized. Additionally, the increased opportunities provided through precepting pharmacy students and supervising nursing students allowed me to further assess learning. With these students, I would often assess by watching them perform what had been taught. For the nursing students, this included allowing them to accompany me as I administered the COVID-19 vaccination to patients. Once they had observed me, I would then supervise them until I had determined that they felt comfortable with workflow and that they were able to provide information to the patients. This was helpful as I was able to assess what they had learned and answer any questions they had immediately. I continued to use the teach-back method to assess learning in diabetes education courses or counseling sessions.
I have greatly improved in giving meaningful feedback. I was given many more opportunities to provide feedback during the second half of the teaching certificate program. I continued to provide immediate feedback during lectures using the Kahoot game or patient cases. I addressed which choice was correct and why the others were wrong. I provided feedback by addressing problems in a collective way before speaking to the individual personally. This allowed the individual to correct the problem before a personal confrontation is necessary. The student pharmacists and nursing students that I precepted and supervised provided the most opportunities for feedback. I addressed issues by providing suggestions to the students. A specific nursing student was uncomfortable with an injection technique. I provided instruction after which the student felt more comfortable with the task. I provided feedback on how well the student pharmacists were counseling or performing medication therapy management activities. I advised students that instead of asking, “Are you taking your medication as you should?” asking, “How many times per week do you miss your dose?” provides more accurate results. Little changes can produce great results in these cases. I have truly enjoyed providing feedback to these students and watching them grow.
Goal 1: Deliver concise, organized, and effective presentations to facilitate learning
I believe I accomplished this goal during my experience in the teaching certificate program. The surveys from my director, peers, and learners bear out that there is little that the learners considered to be unhelpful. Most of the surveys showed that the learners were satisfied with what had been included. They also stated that my materials were either organized or very organized in nature. Some of the learners did suggest that I could increase the number of patient cases discussed. The performance of the learners on the Kahoot games and patient cases were as expected. Over 70% of the students were selecting the right answer. Over 80% of students answered the exam questions correctly demonstrating that the important points had been retained.
Goal 2: Tailor personalized instruction to encourage learning in individual and group settings
This goal was accomplished during my year in the teaching certificate program. For the students I precepted, I would ask the student how they learned best. I would then try to tailor the activities that we used to fit their needs. For large groups, I would incorporate many different learning activities to meet the needs of the audience. I would include survey questions to determine if the audience found the activities helpful. The patient cases and Kahoot game were consistently chosen as the most helpful parts of the lecture. Other active learning exercises that were incorporated included the plate method for diabetes education, hands-on demonstrations, and the teach-back method of educating. All these activities seemed to increase the facilitation of learning.
Goal 3: Provide valuable and timely feedback to learners
I was able to provide timely feedback during lectures and when supervising or precepting students. During lectures, the feedback would occur immediately after the correct answer was revealed. For the student learners I was supervising or those that were on rotation, much of the feedback was immediate. I was able to provide feedback to one student nurse about correct injection technique. I know this feedback was valuable based on her evaluation of my feedback: “Your guidance and direction was so very enlightening and gave me more confidence in my task as well. Thank you again for allowing me to be part of the clinic.” I received similar words from a pharmacy student who was on rotation. That student wrote “I’ve learned so much from you in such a short period of time and I appreciate you taking the time to teach me, despite your very busy schedule.” These remarks from those under my supervision demonstrates that I was helping them improve through my feedback.