KARACHI: Keeping in view the rapidly improving education scenario of Health Professions Institutions in Pakistan, LCMD strives to continuously improve and uphold its vision of academic excellence and faculty training to employ best teaching practices.
The department of health professions education (DHPE) College of dentistry, LCMD, conducted a series of teaching & learning workshops held recently for faculty belonging to basic and clinical departments. Workshops offered dedicated sessions on designing evidence based lesson plans, engaging strategies for small group and large classroom, Developing e-portfolio & clinical teaching models as well as practicing feedback skills in medical education.
The first day of the series was commenced by Dr Azfar (Orthopedic Surgeon), who beautifully explained the audience the significance of evidence-based lesson plans in a student-centered learning environment. Dr Yusra then delivered a detailed lecture on the flipped classroom and its’ implication in a learner-centered environment. After the lecture the attending audience was engaged in lesson-plan formulating task on the new methods (BOPSS, or Gagne’s) which helped them develop a concept regarding the novel methods and will aid them in incorporating it into their curriculum.
Second day of the series was devoted to developing feedback skills in Medical education. This day was conducted by Dr Shirjeel Hussain (Asst. Professor in General Medicine) and Prof Dr Naheed Najmi (HOD- Operative Dentistry).
Dr Shirjeel initiated the day by explaining the participants the qualities of a Good teacher and the significance of teaching models and their incorporation into the teaching styles. The transition from traditional teaching to a learner-centered model for inpatient and out-patient teaching is rather difficult and he made it rather easy to understand it.
Then Dr Naheed Najmi described types of feedback and their implementations according to the setting and their significance in developing a professional attitude in the students. The use of audiovisual aids made understanding very engaging and easier. The day was rather fun as the participants were divided into 6 small groups and were asked to Role-play teaching models and feed-back models. Learning was made fun.
The last and third day was exclusively committed to teaching and training the participants regarding the importance of developing a professionally fashioned E-Portfolio. Prof. Dr. Tahera Ayub conducted a very thorough lecture on the significance of the E-portfolio. She was very keen for the participants to become familiar with the concept of digital presence of a trainer/teacher in the institute that may help them in their promotions and to achieve the set goals in the due time. She along with Dr Azfar trained the participants in using different tools for developing E-portfolios.
The workshops were facilitated by Prof Dr Tahera Ayub (Chairperson Clinical Curriculum Committee), Prof Dr Naheed Najmi (Head of Department Operative Dentistry), Dr Yusra Nasir ( In-charge Medical Education, LCMD College of Dentistry ) , Dr Azfar (Orthopedic Surgeon), and Dr Shirjeel Hussain ( Deputy Director Medical Services, DSH). Senior and junior faculty from all over the departments; (Oral Surgery, Operative Dentistry, Prosthodontics, Orthodontics, General Medicine, and General surgery from clinical Section and Dental Materials, Community Dentistry, Oral Biology, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Biochemistry, General Pathology, and Physiology participated from the Basic Section, became enthusiastic audience. A total of 35-40 participants attended this series of workshop.
The workshops provided excellent hands-on for the participants where they developed lesson plans, learnt active strategies for large class room format, Performed role plays on clinical teaching models. The step-by-step hands-on opportunity to develop teaching e-portfolios will be used for data collection for multi-dimensional Faculty evaluation
Feedback was religiously taken from all the participants and they appreciated the series of workshops and requested for such workshops to be held regularly along with the refresher workshops so that they remain updated. The workshops concluded with participants debriefing and feedback on how we can improve further.
