Administrative Structure of the Educational Development Office >> The Educational Development Office provides services to anyone within the School of Medicine free of charge but subject to the priorities established by the Director and the Advisory Council in consultation with the Senior Associate Dean of Education. The Educational Development Office is not affiliated with a particular department or division.
Vision
Two medical school candidates are riding the subway, perhaps in New York or Chicago. One asks “What do you think of the University of Miami?” The other replies, “I hear the teaching is awesome.”
Mission
The Educational Development Office serves the educational needs of the medical school—all faculty and students—by enhancing the curriculum, supporting and developing faculty, and defining and implementing institutional structures that support health sciences education.
Value Statement
The following beliefs guide our efforts:
Expertise in teaching is not an end point but a life-long journey sustained by the desire for continual improvement.
Improving teaching and learning depends upon self-awareness.
Effective interpersonal relationships are critical to improving teaching and learning.
Teaching skills are learned through practice with feedback.
Teaching improvement efforts must respect differences in tasks faced by teachers, between teachers, and between students.
History
The Educational Development Office was created in the fall of 2002 to enhance teaching and learning in the medical school. An Advisory Council was chosen to develop terms of reference and procedures that would ensure the relevance of the office to the educational needs of the faculty. The Advisory Council is represented by faculty with vast experience and varied backgrounds.
Activities
Our scope includes all three branches of educational development—organizational, instructional and faculty development—as well as research and scholarship. Faculty collaboration is invited in all projects.
Organizational Development
To increase the institutional value and recognition of education and foster a supportive attitude toward education at the UMSM, the EDO will engage in the following activities:
Construction of teaching portfolios for support of promotion and tenure;
Organize school-wide Educational Grand Rounds;
Establish self-sustaining teacher training programs, e.g. faculty learning communities;
Develop a cadre of clinician-educators who will act as educational resources, advocates, and planners of educational development activities;
Establish a stepwise certificate and diploma program leading to advanced degrees;
Create an educational fellowship program;
Strengthen connections between UMSM and external educational networks and resources.
Faculty Development
To advance faculty teaching skills and faculty’s understanding of education the office will engage in the following activities:
Introduce evaluation driven methods and classroom research;
Develop and support faculty learning communities and shared faculty experiences;
Provide individual consulting;
Plan and coordinate workshops and seminars with ongoing follow-up;
Assist faculty in accessing the education literature by providing books, articles, and Internet based resources, and organizing journal clubs, book chats, and newsletters;
Organize and support peer consultation models like “Alliances for Change.”
Instructional Development
Collaborate with the Curriculum Office in curriculum renewal and program enhancement projects, such as:
Problem-based learning;
Learner-centered teaching;
Life-long learning;
Curriculum alignment;
Coordination of program evaluation with curriculum and faculty development.
Research
Encourage and assist faculty in educational research and scholarship by:
Individual consultation and assistance to faculty interested in acquiring the skills of educational research;
Individual assistance to faculty in constructing promotional materials for a career based on educational research;
A series of Educational Research Rounds;
Seminars on research methods in medical education;
Introduction of faculty to classroom research and other methods.
Develop a list of the projects in which members of the EDO are engaged on our website. |
