The needs and aspirations of the 21st century require medical education to adopt innovative teaching strategies. Several medical specialties have employed novel teaching methodologies including the use of flipped classroom, telemedicine, remote teaching, virtual conferences, and simulations to meet the needs of millennial students.
The Health Professions Education Department at National University of Medical Sciences (NUMS) has been at the forefront in the promotion of these innovative teaching strategies and strives to train healthcare professionals and educators in these domains. As a continuation of this venture, a one-day workshop on ‘Innovations in teaching and learning’ was conducted by NUMS Health Professions Education Department at Army Medical College on June 14, 2022. A total of 44 faculty members from the college attended the workshop. These included both clinical and basic sciences faculty.
The workshop commenced with the recitation of the Holy Quran. Head NDHPE, Dr. Ayesha Rauf, opened the session with an introduction of different teaching and learning methodologies. The participants were then divided into two groups for two parallel sessions on ‘Innovations in classroom teaching’ and ‘Innovations in clinical teaching’. The duration of each session was 90 minutes. Classroom teaching is the most employed teaching method in medical education, with the advantage of transmitting knowledge to many students at one time. The session on classroom teaching in the workshop was facilitated by Dr. Asiya Zahoor and Dr. Mashaal Sabqat. It encompassed innovative techniques for learner engagement and developing lecture, case-based learning and flipped classroom. The participants were also introduced to a few E-learning tools like Socrative and Padlet with hands-on practice.
The importance of clinical teaching in medical education cannot be overemphasized as it forms the basis of doctor-patient interaction. The session on clinical teaching was facilitated by Dr. Naushaba Sadiq and Dr. Adeela Bashir. It encompassed One-Minute Preceptor/SNAPPS, Peyton’s four-step approach for skill teaching and Mini-CEX. Both the sessions were supervised by Dr. Ayesha Rauf and Dr. Rukhsana Ayub. The sessions started with the participants filling a Google form-based pre-test questionnaire supervised by Dr. Fozia Fatima and Dr. Nadia Shabnam. The sessions were conducted on the principles of active learning and were based on hands-on activities. The participants were divided into smaller groups of seven students each, who given handouts and guides for the development of all teaching strategies. The participants in each small group developed their assigned teaching sessions with guidance from their respective facilitators and presented to the whole group for constructive critique and active discussion with the facilitators and other group members. After lunch break, the participants switched their groups to attend the other 90-minute session.
The workshop ended with a closing session in which Dr. Ayesha Rauf and Dr. Rukhsana Ayub summarized the whole session for all the participants. The honorable Principal Major General Dr. Farrukh Saeed and vice Principal Major General Dr. Adil of Army Medical College gave their remarks on the workshop and appreciated the initiative taken by the college and NDHPE faculty to encourage the use of innovative teaching strategies in medical education. The participants also gave their feedback about the workshop and filled the online post-test questionnaire based on Google forms.