Faculty Feed

Why is it that we are naturally gifted to do some things and not others? This week we interview Brian Buford, the Director of the Employee Success Center at the University of Louisville. As a certified Strengths Finder coach, Brian discusses this tool from the Gallup Organization, which has been used by nearly 27 million people to maximize their potential at work and everywhere else. Brian talks about what you will learn about yourself, using that information to plan your work and career, and empowering others to succeed by focusing on strengths rather than shortcomings.  Learn more about the UofL Employee Success Center and Gallups Strength Finder (https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/252137/home.aspx)

Between 10 and 20% of all first-time specialty board exam takers will fail the test. Just imagine the resulting shame and embarrassment that can accompany this, and the impact it can have on this faculty member’s confidence as they must continue to do their job while waiting two long years to retake the exam. Join us this week as one of our young faculty members in pediatric critical care shares her experience after failing her critical care board exams. In humility and blunt honesty, Dr. Natalie Henderson shares with Drs. Rabalais, Saner, and Weingartner how this impacted her work and family life as she studied and waited to take the exam, not just one more time, but two more times. We can all learn from how Dr. Henderson demonstrated her capacity to take action, handling this exam failure with courage and vulnerability. To read Dr. Henderson's entire article please visit our blog site.

In this time of the Great Resignation, the need for compassionate leadership is greater than ever. Employee engagement and motivation are all improved in organizational cultures that foster and promote the core leadership virtues of treating people with dignity, respect, authenticity, and empathy. Join us as we talk with Dr. Ryan Quinn, Associate Professor, UofL College of Business, and Director of the newly-created Project on Positive Leadership at UofL, as he shares his insights on the power of positive leadership, the mission of this project, and how positive leadership shapes organizational culture.

Or access the Project on Positive Leadership at the following URL: https://business.louisville.edu/about/learning-at-cob/ppl/

Inclusive spaces are critical for the health and wellbeing of LGBTQ+ communities. On today’s episode, we talk with Bláz Bush, the former Director of the LGBT Center at UofL’s Health Sciences Center campus. Bláz joins Drs. Jerry Rabalais, Staci Saner, and Laura Weingartner as they discuss steps that health professions faculty can take to create supportive spaces for LGBTQ+ patients and learners. Since the recording of this episode, Bláz has taken a position at The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. However, UofL faculty can still access resources from the LGBT Center at HSC (https://louisville.edu/lgbt/hsc), including registering for The LGBTQ+ Affirming Healthcare Series that Bláz discussed. Listeners can also access the online LGBTQ+ Clinical Skills Training Manual (https://ir.library.louisville.edu/medicine_ume/1/) and complete the free CME/CE training (https://louisville.edu/medicine/cme/credits/eQuality19) mentioned in the episode.

Do you understand just how to teach our learners at the Health Sciences Center to become self-directed, lifelong learners? Well, the accrediting bodies for our HSC schools mandate that the faculty do so. This shift in focus from a teacher-directed to a learner-centered approach requires a change in mindset for us in our educator role. So, if you would like to learn more about how to accomplish this transition, you need to listen to this week’s podcast on self-directed learning (SDL) with Drs. Jerry Rabalais, Staci Saner, & Laura Weingartner as they discuss this shift, the observable behaviors of SDL, and how we can promote SDL with our learners

Citation: Grow GO. Teaching Learners To Be Self-Directed. Adult Education Quarterly. 1991;41(3):125-149. doi:10.1177/0001848191041003001

For more information email: [email protected]

Have you wondered just how much your teaching impacts your learners and how participation in faculty development programming can give you tools to enhance that impact? Join us as we talk with Drs. Imelda Wright and Paul Clark from the UofL School of Nursing as they describe how they have worked to bring more learner engagement to the classroom, generating the two-way conversation with their students so critical to their learning. Paul and Imelda also share how their participation in faculty development offerings has helped them continue to be lifelong learners as faculty. You won’t want to miss their personal insights on how they have become more impactful in their role as educators.

In this episode of Faculty Feed, we talk with Dr. Russ Farmer (Associate Professor, Department of Surgery) about how best to drive critical thinking skills in our learners. He highlights a tool that facilitates the use of strategic questioning strategies for our busy and chaotic clinical learning environments. Instead of defaulting to lower-order questions that require only fact-based answers, this tool, the Questioning Aid for Rich, Real-Time Discussion (QARRD), prompts faculty to craft higher-order questions that require the learner to apply, analyze, evaluate, and create solutions to clinical problems. Better questions drive the development of critical thinking skills in our learners. For more information check out our publication in MedEd Portal or email [email protected]to schedule training for your clinical educators.

Starting Jan. 7th, we will provide Faculty Feed each Friday. Join us next week with Dr. Russ Farmer as we discuss strategic questioning and the Questioning Aid for Rich, Real-time Discussion (QARRD).

What does the movie Moneyball, the story of the 2014 Kansas City Royals professional baseball team’s adoption of small incremental practices that brought them from obscurity to the World Series, have to do with teaching more effectively? This movie was the inspiration for the book Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by James Lang (2016). Like the incremental practices that got the Royals on base to score runs, the underlying principle here is the same. Small, incremental educational practices that increase learner engagement drive better learning than passive listening to the professor in the classroom or the faculty member telling students and residents things in the clinic or on hospital rounds. Join Drs. Jerry Rabalais and Staci Saner as they discuss easy, practical things that can be done by the faculty member in both the classroom or in the clinical teaching environment to increase learner engagement and therefore learning significantly.

For a deeper dive into this topic, check out our online module on these principles with practical suggestions that you can implement in your teaching at: https://rise.articulate.com/share/9e35Z1bUx6y-VYFKVrnskKDIBWxd8HyQ

Important Links -

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Contact Staci Saner if you would like to participate in the HSC Educator Grand Rounds - [email protected]