Course Title: 

Postgraduate certificate; Essential Skills in Health Professions Education

Pre-requisites / Eligibility:

1. Faculty of health and medical sciences i.e. medical doctors, dentists, physical therapists, pharmacists, nurses of all levels.
2. Statement of intent.

Credit Hours:

08 (5 credit hours for 02 Contact Sessions and 3 credit hours for assignments)

Total duration and Format: 

6 months (24 weeks, including contact sessions, assignments and comprehensive examination).

It is a blended learning course, comprised of contact sessions and Online / E. learning through Riphah learning platform Moodle (Moellim).

There will be 01week for pre-reading (self-study), followed by two campus based intensive face to face contact sessions in between the duration of 6 months. Each contact session consists of 01-week (05 days) duration at the institution, which will be further followed by workplace-based assignments/projects (Total 04, 01 credit hour of each assignment) through Online / E. learning platform Moellim (15 weeks). There will be a summative examination on the 24th week of 6 months (Theory Paper).

There will be a gap of 3 months between two contact sessions.

Students will also physically appear for the end of certificate examination as well.

The rationale for the course (Strong Points of the Course):

Due to the advancement and development of innovative educational strategies, integrated curriculum, assessment methodologies, with implementation of ELearning environment and technology zenith in medical & allied health, the health professionals require to be acquainting with all these innovations and demonstrate essential skills & competencies as a teacher, educational scholar and leader. The review of literature shows that up till now, diverse and myriad faculty development programs have been planned, designed, implemented and evaluated by the institutions and offered to health professionals to improve their knowledge and skills in areas of teaching, research, and administration and help to successfully demonstrate their roles at all level of the educational continuum.

Faculty development has become an increasingly important component of medical education and it has a critical role to play in promoting academic excellence and innovations (Dent, J.A., and Harden, R.M. (2005). If we want to achieve excellence in healthcare education, then we need to develop educational leaders and promote the scholarship of teaching.

This means that the training of health professionals requires high standards of education at par with the realities of the practical world. Along with the expansion of health profession education as a need, a reform in health professions education is taking place all over the world e.g. curriculum integration, implementation of PBL/CBL, use of simulator in teaching, virtual patients, OSCE/OSPE as an assessment tools etc.

This course is designed keeping in mind the basic requirements for health professionals/teachers so that they can demonstrate the competencies of an effective teacher at an advanced level.

Course Goal:

The course endeavors to train health professionals/teachers in basics concepts and principles of health medical education along with its application at the workplace so that they can demonstrate the basic competencies of an effective teacher.

Assessment Policy:

1: Formative assessment:  Throughout the contact session, constructive feedback will be provided to the learners about their progress by the teachers & peers. Formative assessment is used to monitor learning progress during instruction. Effective feedback is central to the process of formative assessment. Its purpose is to provide continuous feedback to both students and the teacher concerning learning successes and failures. Feedback to students provides reinforcement of successful learning and identifies the specific learning errors and misconceptions that need correction. Feedback to the teacher provides information for modifying instruction. Because formative assessment is directed toward improving learning and instruction, and results typically are not used for assigning course grades (Norman L Gronlund). In general, formative assessment should be ongoing, frequent, and non-judgmental and carried out in informal settings. Formative assessment can play a major role in the acquisition of lifelong learning skills by helping students self-regulate their learning activities. 

2: Summative assessment (Assessment modalities):

For Knowledge: The students will be assessed through: Assignments (03) related to major/important themes will be submitted by each student, its weightage will be 50 % towards the aggregate. End of Certificate exam- Structured Essay Questions: Weightage will be 40%

For Skill and attitude: There will be an assessment on the ongoing small group activities, attendance and attitude of each student during the contact session. These activities will be recorded through assessment Performa based on checklists, rating scales and video recording or direct observation of their teaching sessions followed by a reflection of the participants and constructive feedback by the peers and teachers. Weightage: 10%