Teacher training workshops in education: summary of 15 years' personal experience

Teachers of doctors and other health personnel have become increasingly aware of the potential usefulness of applying to their programmes the principles and methods elaborated by educational scientists. Teacher training took many forms, but the workshop was by far the most common. This report is a summary account of the personal experience of the author over 15 years, from 1968 to 1983, as organizer and leader of more than 100 workshops for eleven categories of health professions, in sixteen working languages for over 2000 participants in thirty countries. It shows the way the organization of the workshops was modified from a teacher-centred to a learner-centred approach. The report goes on to describe the first implementation phase (1972-1975), which showed the need for efficient learning materials such as a semi-programmed text providing guidance during the learner's progression through the whole educational cycle. It also became clear that the working language used during a workshop was as important factor in the determination of its success. The report describes further how leaders were selected and trained through 'learning by doing' and how the second implementation phase (1976-1983) developed so that the programme of each workshop was prepared after (and not before) the beginning of the workshop on the basis of independent choices made by each participant.