A Workshop on Teaching Beliefs

Objective: Faculty development activities often center on practical, basic teaching skills. However, we are cautioned by the literature that certain faculty development activities run the risk of simply training and not educating faculty. Some have suggested that the credibility of faculty development programs has suffered from an oversimplified view of the educational process. At the same time, the evolving medical school curriculum is impacting how faculty teach. For example, a shift to problem-based learning (PBL) requires faculty to reexamine fundamental beliefs about the teaching and learning process, and to reconsider their role as teachers. Additionally, appointment, promotion and tenure (APT) committees are increasingly asking faculty for a personal statement that includes a philosophy of teaching. The evolving medical school curriculum also impacts community preceptors who provide clinical experiences for students. Community preceptors are not normally given opportunities to participate in campus-based discussions of curricular change and must simply work with the new process when students rotate through their offices. Our objective was to create a workshop that would help campus faculty and community preceptors to articulate their beliefs about teaching and learning, and to create a personal philosophy of teaching. Description: To explore faculty beliefs as a foundation for meaningful change, we used a framework for self-reflection.1 The framework centers on beliefs about (1) the learner, (2) the aims of teaching, (3) the subject matter, and (4) the teaching—learning transaction.1 This framework has been used in several workshops for campus faculty and community preceptors over the past two years. Small groups of three or four participants are formed and asked to reflect on their own personal beliefs about each of the categories in the framework. The individual groups are then asked to develop comprehensive lists of key words or phrases that represent their beliefs about the category being discussed. The small groups then report, with facilitators capturing ideas on flip-charts. At the conclusion of each category in the framework, individuals are asked to revisit their initial reflections and to change, modify, or expand their original thoughts. The process is repeated for each of the four categories in the framework. Participants are then guided in the development of personal teaching beliefs or teaching philosophy statements. With the help of short prompts or stems, participants develop personalized statements from the key words and phrases created by the working groups. Discussion: Campus faculty are sometimes at a loss when asked to develop teaching portfolios that include a statement of teaching philosophy. This workshop helps faculty to formulate their teaching philosophies in a structured, stepwise manner. Feedback on the workshop from community preceptors has been positive. Preceptors indicate they feel less isolated and more confident as teachers now that a group has thought through and identified common beliefs. One community preceptor indicated that he would frame his teaching philosophy statement for students to see as they rotate through his office. We continue to offer this workshop and to monitor its effect on campus faculty and community preceptors.