Faculty of Medicine

• Improving their teaching and facilitation skills.
• Enhancing their abilities in designing better content in the curriculum and its implementation.
• Cultivating a teaching/learning culture.
• Placing an emphasis on evidence-based teaching and learning.
• Providing support to junior academics and fostering their skills in academia.
• Providing appropriate tools and mechanisms for evaluation.
• Updating staff on new developments in teaching and learning.
• Providing staff with hands-on training in teaching/learning areas new to them or areas that they are willing to become competent in.

Student Training
Learning is a process that requires understanding of its key elements and continuous practice of its rules. The storage of information in the long-term memory and the ability to retrieve this information and use it in different situations depend to a large extent on the way we learnt that information. The Medical Education Research and Development Unit conducts training workshops to first year medical students with the following aims:

• Realising the main differences between the structure/design of their high school course and that of the medical course and helping them to adopt a style that foster their learning.
• Understanding the key elements used in a PBL tutorial.
• Understanding their roles as active learners.
• Understanding how to use the tutor’s feedback to improve their performance.
• Understanding what they need to do to maximize their learning outcomes from self-directed learning.
• Learning how to read a textbook, educational website and how to use a medical dictionary in an effective way.

Learning how to cope with stress and when to seek for help.

1. “Becoming a Problem-Based Learning Facilitator: Hands-on Training Workshop.”

This is a two-day workshop designed for new PBL Facilitators who need to be trained before becoming responsible for a group. The workshop will enable participants with key knowledge about the rationale for using PBL in the curriculum, the educational objectives of PBL, the roles of facilitators in PBL, hands-on training on facilitation with a PBL expert and with medical students, and how to give a constructive feedback to the students.

2. “Advanced Facilitation Skills in Problem-Based Learning.”

This is a two-day workshop designed for teachers with experience in PBL who are willing to improve their skills and enhance their facilitation in PBL. The design of the workshop will enable participants to reflect on their previous experiences in PBL, identify areas that they need to enhance, use case scenarios that mimic difficult situations in PBL tutorials and work-out what will they do, and master the facilitation of mechanisms in PBL cases. The workshop will also cover how develop a teaching portfolio and use feedback to enhance students’ learning.

3. “Innovations in Teaching Anatomy: Hands-on Training Workshop”

This is a one-day workshop designed for anatomist and surgeons with responsibilities in teaching anatomy and conducting practical classes. The design of the workshop will enable participants to reflect on their teaching experiences, and learn new skills in facilitating the teaching of anatomy. The workshop will cover recent developments in teaching anatomy in an integrated curriculum, the use of radiology images in anatomy, innovative strategies in teaching surface anatomy, and strategies for using applied anatomy to foster deep understanding. The different sessions of the workshop are interactive and aim at providing innovative and practical models in teaching and learning anatomy.

4. “Use of Multiple Choice Questions and Short Answer Questions in Assessment”

This is a two-day workshop designed for lecturers involved in writing questions in the formative and summative assessments. The workshop will provide participants with key educational principles on assessment, types of MCQs and the use of single-best answer questions, what will make a good question, validity and reliability of assessment tools, discriminatory indices of a question and of question items, use of “Blue Prints” to construct new questions and ranking of short answer questions .

5. “What Will Make a Good Lecture: Hands-on Training Workshop”

This is a two-day workshop particularly designed for new lecturers and those interested in fostering their skills in this area. The workshop is designed to provide lecturers with educational principles behind a good lecture, how to prepare, what makes a good lecture, how to engage students during a lecture, how to turn a lecture into an interactive learning opportunity, what skills do they need to develop to master their work as lecturers, and how to use teaching portfolio to monitor their progress.

6. “Clinical Teaching: Hands-on Training Workshop”

This is a two-day workshop designed for clinicians who are willing to enhance their skills in clinical teaching including bedside teaching, mentoring, how to run a seminar with students, how to plan a small group discussion, and how to give a constructive feedback. The workshop will also focus on a number of teaching/learning skills and recent advances in evidence-based teaching.

7. “Clinical Teaching: Effective Use of Simulation”

This is a two-day workshop that will provide clinical teachers with the basic skills for effective use of the clinical laboratory and how to use simulation in their teaching. The workshop will be conducted by leaders in simulation and international clinical teachers in collaboration with the Chair of Medical Education Research and Development Unit.

“Becoming an Effective Learner: Training Workshops for Medical Students.”

This is a four-day workshop designed for all first-year medical students. The workshop will enable participants with key knowledge about their roles as active learners and how to identify their learning needs, and maximize their self-directed learning skills. It also provides students with hands-on training on how to read a textbook, educational website and how to use a medical dictionary in an effective way. Skills such as how to cope with stress and when to seek help are also covered.