Preserving the best of the art of teaching

Teachers often develop unique methods to help students learn, but these techniques may be lost when they retire from the profession. In the 15 years that they have conducted the Effective Teaching Workshop: Improving Your Skills, the authors of this paper have observed presentations of many innovative teaching methods. The article describes five methods recently presented at the annual workshop: the use of a flipchart with slides; the use of Polarmotion overhead transparencies; an asthma simulation; a breast-mass simulation; and teamwork and game-playing. The authors present these techniques in the hope of reaching a broader audience, and to stimulate other teachers to submit descriptions of innovative teaching methods for possible publication in the Ideas for Medical Education column.