Course Descriptions
Sociocultural Contexts of Teaching and Learning
The goal of the course is to provide students with a strong background for designing educational experiences, planning educational programs, and conducting research on a variety of teaching and learning-related questions. Application of principles to medical and health professions education is expected. The course is designed to help participants consider the meaning of learning and the various contextual factors that influence the learning process in higher education. This course explores the application of the learning science in the design of learning environments. Students evaluate inclusive, diverse, and equitable educational environments and use insights to improve practices, as well as the technologies higher education institutions use to document and assess learning.
Current Issues in Higher Education
Learners will explore issues of contemporary concern among higher education practitioners, faculty, and administrators. The course utilizes a historical perspective to establish the background for the discussion of the issues influencing higher education today. Topics related to academic and student affairs in academic health centers will be identified and examined. Coursework and readings provide a nuanced understanding of differing perspectives on complex issues. Learners will utilize higher education research to examine issues, identify pros and cons, and challenge assumptions. Doctoral-level writing is emphasized.
Designing Educational Experiences
This course prepares students with theoretic foundations and best practices to plan, apply, design, and evaluate appropriate instructional methods to enhance learner achievement. Application of principles to medical and health professions education is expected. Learners will analyze a wide range of instructional methods and then design an array of formative and summative assessments utilizing evidence-based assessment instruments and techniques.
Diversity in Higher Education
Learners will reflect upon and articulate an understanding of representation of individuals (primarily students and faculty) from diverse backgrounds in institutions of higher education. The social, legal, and political discourse that has shaped education (knowledge making) in the United States and its impact on diversity in higher education will be explored. Learners will research and determine ways to address issues such as equity, bias, and access to high quality education and develop effective teaching strategies illustrating best practices in establishing ideal learning environments. Historical (seminal texts dating back early as 1900) and dynamic, "real-time" literature and media will be explored and further enriched through our active participation.
Community Partnerships in Health Professions Education
This course is designed to prepare health professions educators and administrators to embrace and model a commitment to service through effective community engagement practices. During this course, students will explore, analyze, and discuss partnership frameworks with diverse stakeholders including state and federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and other educational institutions, and will apply philosophies and techniques for effective cross-sector collaboration.
Practicum
The practicum provides students with an in-depth supervised opportunity to apply knowledge and skills gained in the MHPE core teaching courses. This virtual practicum requires students to work individually to develop all aspects of an online course. Students will engage through media creation, planning for diverse course audiences, and peer review
Educational Scholarship Methods
Within the context of Boyer’s four models of scholarship, this course provides the knowledge necessary to understand the purposes and processes of research using an expanded definition of scholarship that goes beyond the scholarship of discovery (research) to include the scholarship of integration, the scholarship of application, and the scholarship of teaching. The course will also introduce students to quantitative and qualitative design approaches, examine foundational issues of research from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives, and build skills for interpreting and evaluating research including criteria for evaluating empirical studies, particularly in the social sciences and in education.
Program Evaluation
Program evaluation is a relatively young discipline in the formal sense of systematically collecting data for the purpose of informing decision-making. Program evaluation builds on many other disciplines to include social sciences, education, and statistics. In this course, we will explore the philosophical and theoretical roots of evaluation and the bridge between those roots and evaluation practice. In particular, we will discuss the meaning of program evaluation and its historical roots; philosophical and theoretical orientations that provide guidance for thinking about evaluation; examine program evaluation approaches specific to health professions education; and finally, we will cover the specifics of planning, implementing, and managing the evaluation process.
Organization & Management in Higher Education
Learners will research and understand higher education organizational structures and issues of oversight and will develop an understanding of how colleges and universities are governed. Who are the key decision makers at these institutions? What roles do various constituents such as the board members, presidents, deans, faculty and staff, and students play? Learners will explore how organizational structures, culture, context, and characteristics influence institutional governance and decision making. Learners will become knowledgeable about the history of and current trends in the management and operations of higher education institutions with a focus on academic health centers. This course will make use of current research literature, debate, and discussion of current events as a means to better understand higher education organization and management.
Simulation in Healthcare
This course will examine the use of medical modeling and simulation as instructional and assessment tools of the modern health professions educator. Participants will explore the key features of simulation-based healthcare education that lead to effective learning, evaluate the range of simulation methodologies, and critically review current research and trends in simulation-based education and assessment. Participants will apply learning with a systematic instructional design process to develop a practical simulation-based teaching and/or assessment project by the end of the course.
Capstone
The capstone experience provides the learner the opportunity to present a program portfolio demonstrating achievement of all program goals and student learning outcomes.