Education Theory Made Practical: Creating open educational resources via an apprenticeship model

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Faculty Development
• Educational Theory Application

Background:

• Clinical faculty often lack comprehensive knowledge of education theories and best practices.
• Existing faculty development programs frequently utilize passive learning methods with limited practical application.
• There is a significant need for more active and engaging learning experiences for early-career health professions educators.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create an innovative, apprenticeship-based electronic book series.
• To translate complex education theories into practical applications for clinician educators.
• To foster active engagement and scholarship among early-career educators.

Main Methods:

• Developed an electronic book series with chapters authored by teams of early-career educators.
• Focused on explaining education theories and relating them to practical educational settings.
• Implemented a multi-stage peer review process, including internal and open (blog) review.
• Collected usage data and distributed surveys to authors and end-users.

Main Results:

• Published six volumes (60 chapters) over six years, involving 180 authors.
• Achieved substantial engagement with 65,571 blog page views and 17,180 book downloads.
• Demonstrated significant increases in authors' perceived knowledge (4.5/9.0 difference, p < 0.001) and end-users' knowledge (2.9/9.0 difference, p < 0.001).
• Authors reported career advancements and expertise development.

Conclusions:

• The Education Theory Made Practical series serves as a successful proof of concept.
• An apprenticeship-based model effectively teaches education theory while generating scholarship.
• The series provides valuable open-access resources for the health professions education community.