Teaching toolkit for medical students

From teaching juniors and peers to educating patients, it is imperative for all doctors to have basic core teaching skills. The Junior Association for the Study of Medical Education (JASME) felt that a short course in the fundamentals of teaching would be well received by students.

This article shares the lessons from a one-day teaching course aimed at senior medical students. Qualitative feedback helped decide which aspects of the course were most valued.

The course was piloted in London. It combined interactive plenary sessions on teaching theory with practical teaching sessions. Each student taught a small group of others a basic clinical skill, and the student teacher then received extensive feedback from their peers and an experienced clinician with a special interest in medical education. There was an opportunity to re-teach part of the skill after having taken the feedback on board.

Students completed questionnaires at the start and end of the day to ascertain their expectations of the course and what they found most useful. Expectations can be grouped into three main areas: students wanted to improve their teaching skills; gain teaching experience; and receive feedback on their teaching. The most valuable part of the course was being able to practise teaching and receive feedback. Keywords used to describe the feedback included 'individual', 'valuable', 'constructive', 'instant' and 'in depth'. By continuing to run similar workshops we hope that we can further encourage the teachers of tomorrow.