Clinical Teaching across the Learner Continuum: Entry Level through Post Professional
Purpose:
As clinical educators (instructors and mentors) participate in the training of learners at different stages in their professional education and development, they must have a clear understanding of the similarities and structural differences between instructing a physical therapist student and mentoring a resident or fellow. Professional physical therapist programs are charged by accreditation standards to produce physical therapists ready to enter practice at an entry-level competence. Clinical instructors (CIs) for entry-level programs supervise and educate students throughout their professional education; therefore, CIs support student development while they are still considered “novice” but also work with students as they achieve entry-level competence. Post professional residency education takes the competent clinician to higher levels of development; emphasizing the development of advanced clinical reasoning skills in a specialty area of clinical practice. Clinical mentors will use similar teaching and learning strategies utilized by CIs but must apply these strategies to support a learner beyond novice expectations. The growth in programs and interest in residency and fellowship education has resulted in the need for highly skilled clinical educators adept at clinical teaching and comfortable with their role and ability to adapt to the varying learner. The session will compare and contrast these two roles of the clinician educator as they cross the continuum of physical therapist education.
Methods and/or Description of Project:
In this session, speakers provide a short overview of the foundations of clinical education across the continuum. They will then compare and contrast clinical educator preparation and the structure and mechanics of a clinical teaching and mentoring session (e.g., micro skills, self reflection). Participants will view video cases which highlight clinical education in both entry-level and residency settings. Using guided questions, participants will discuss the video cases in small and large groups, and utilize the strategies presented to make recommendations to address negative characteristics.
Tentative Outline/Schedule: • Foundations of clinical education/Overview
• Compare and contrast clinical educator preparation • Selection process
• Training process
• Competencies
• Compare and contrast clinical teaching and mentoring sessions: “How does a clinical education look across the continuum of physical therapist education?” • Purpose
• Mechanics/Structure • Entry level
• Residency - Micro-skills, strategies for reflection
• Video cases – View two video cases that demonstrate clinical teaching/mentoring sessions (entry-level, residency) • In small groups identify positive/negative characteristics using guided questions
• In a large group review cases and make suggestions to address negative characteristics of video cases
• Compare and contrast assessment • Student/Resident outcomes
• Instructor/Mentor outcomes
• Summary thoughts/Resources
• Questions and answers
Results/Outcomes:
As a large group, participants will view three video cases that demonstrate the interaction between a student/instructor and a resident/mentor. They will then break into small groups to identify and discuss the similarities/differences and positive/negative characteristics of the interaction using the following guided questions: • What were the contextual factors of the interaction?
• How does the guidance provided differ?
• What were some effective questions/strategies of the instructor?
The small groups will come together to discuss the video cases and identify positive characteristics of the interaction and generate suggestions to address any negative characteristics that were identified. The speakers will facilitate the discussions in both small and large groups.
Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme:
Today's clinician educators instruct learners across the continuum: physical therapist assistant students, physical therapist students, residents, and fellows. Key teaching and learning strategies can be utilized across the continuum. A highly skilled clinical educator must be nimble and adapt these strategies specifically to the learner’s current level of understanding and abilities. Additionally, there are structural differences related to supervision and clinical roles skilled clinical educators may have to negotiate on a daily basis if they are engaged in training students, residents, and fellows. This session will enhance clinical educators ability and confidence in mentoring learners of all levels.