The TinyTalks Curriculum:

Background: In busy clinical environments, educational opportunities must consider learner needs. Millennial and generation Z adults, who comprise most of today’s learners, prefer short, applicable, self-directed, on demand learning that incorporates technology. Despite these generational preferences, the current curriculum for pediatric residents at our institution involves traditional didactics.

Objective: Use Kern’s 6-step approach to curriculum development to create a comprehensive curriculum of clinical pearls that incorporates technology to meet the learning needs and preferences of current pediatric residents.

Methods: Using a broad needs assessment and focused literature review (step 1), we identified the problems and crafted overarching principles for curriculum development. Results of a targeted needs assessment survey of pediatric residents (step 2) informed development of specific goals and objectives (step 3) and educational strategies (step 4). We are developing and implementing a curriculum of chalk-talk style videos (step 5), with plans to evaluate its effectiveness (step 6).

Results: We identified that pediatric residents were dissatisfied with the current curriculum. Based on literature demonstrating the effectiveness of chalk-talks and knowledge that e-learning modules are feasible and useful for residents on busy clinical rotations, we decided to create a comprehensive online curriculum of short, chalk-style videos of clinical pearls. 44/64 (69%) pediatric residents completed the targeted needs assessment indicating perceived learning needs and deficiencies, desired topics and teachers, and preferred methods of engaging the curriculum. Topics included content assessed in the General Pediatrics Board Examination. Residents reported being least knowledgeable in genetics, allergy/immunology, and rheumatology. The most requested content was for nephrology, pulmonology, cardiology, and dermatology. Residents requested teachers from six interprofessional disciplines. 73% of residents envisioned using the chalk-talk videos for independent study. We created five short teacher training videos on how to prepare the chalk-talk videos. Five clinicians, including four physicians and one pharmacist, have prepared pilot content videos.

Conclusions: Guided by Kern’s framework, we are developing a comprehensive curriculum of short, chalk-talk style videos of clinical pearls taught by interprofessional clinicians that can be used flexibly by pediatric residents. We call this project “The TinyTalks Curriculum.”