Novel ideas and Innovation in Education

Connectionism and education - theory meets practice in team-based learning?

The MindPROJECT provides a nice introductory summary of the theory of connectionism in education (not medical education specifically, but education in general). Connectionism is implicitly linked to team-based learning (TBL) and practice, and as such has legitimate importance in medical education where TBL is critical from training and clinical practice. Click here for more information.
 

Follow up to Medical Education Day 2011: More about Critical Thinking

Thinking fast and slow - system 1 versus (or in addition to?) system 2 processing

This is an easy-to-read book intended for a general audience about how we think. Written by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel prize winner in economic science, this book provides a historical and rational overview of cognitive reasoning, with an emphasis on cognitive biases and heuristics. Kahneman describes several of the early experiments that delineated the roles of system 1 and system 2 processing. While not explicitly laid out in this book, there are lots of pretty obvious analogies to clinical reasoning and medical education.

Click here to read the Times' review.

Helpful Apps for the Medical Educator

Turning notes into PDFs on the fly!

DocScanner is a great new app for your smartphone.  It enables you to turn images from your smartphone or tablet into clear, readable, searchable pdfs immediately.  Although not free, it is reasonably priced for a very useful app.
 

Update from the Academy Interest Groups

News from Peer Observation of Teaching Interest Group

In follow up to our June 2011 Symposium with keynote from Dr. Tom Kane, a recent Harvard Gazette article provides an interesting follow-up to his research on classroom observations.

Currently we have continued our efforts to gather data of current HMS (and HMS-affiliated) peer observation activities. We finalized a Peer Observation of Faculty Teaching Activity Form to collect information from Academy members (and encourage you to add your Peer Observation activities here now). The Interest Group has also embarked on the development of a (pre-clinical) small group teaching observation form using the modified Delphi Method. Through this process, interest group members conducted a literature search, collected existing HMS small group assessment forms, and held discussions to generate a listing of essential small group teaching observation skills. The group is currently modifying wording and voting on the importance of including each item on a small group teaching observation "worksheet." Our goal is to reach consensus on the observation worksheet by early March at which time we hope to start to conduct statistical analysis to determine the form's content validity and then later test for reliability.  We hope you will join our next group meeting and if you have questions feel free to contact Lori Newman or Susan Frankl, co-chairs of the Interest Group.

What we heard recently

David Weinberger interviewed on NPR's On The Media

David Weinberger from Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society discusses how knowledge as a whole is fundamentally changed in the digital age in his new book Too Big to Know.  Brook Gladstone interviews David for NPR's On The Media.

Click here to listen to David's interview.