Developing In-Person Teaching Excellence Workshops through Four Pedagogical Lenses: Cultural Humility, Active Learning, Dealing with Challenges, and Technology

Background: As a part of a large national organization, our training office aims to support and create high-quality teaching and learning opportunities to serve the diverse needs of audiences nationwide. To achieve this goal, we developed and delivered in-person workshops to our organization’s library staff at eight regional medical libraries. Our in-person training was developed through four pedagogical lenses: 1) Cultural Humility, 2) Active Learning, 3) Dealing with Challenges, and 4) Technology. This paper describes the design, delivery, and outcomes of our in-person training program through these lenses.

Description: Each in-person training program is a day and a half. To help our audience’s preparation for the workshops, we delivered supportive materials and small activities through our learning management system, enabling us to provide blended-learning opportunities for our audience. For each of the aforementioned pedagogical lenses, our training team created meta-teaching activities to promote learning, give examples and spark ideas for teaching in-person, with an emphasis on active learning interventions. Between each workshop, we used evaluation data and personal reflections from our team to improve training. At the end of the workshop, learners deliver a presentation as an application and indicator of their learning. Presentations are reviewed under the four pedagogical lenses by other learners.

Conclusion: At submission, three of eight workshops are completed, with our last workshop is scheduled to March 2020. By our final submission date, we will have more data to discuss. Preliminary pre and post-survey results of the in-person training, and reflections from our training team indicate positive learning outcomes. For example, learners reported an increase in applying active learning strategies, applying culturally humble strategies and content, presentation skills, using technology in-person teaching and training, and giving and receiving feedback. As a result of our workshops, we created a community of practice where the participants can contribute to the resources continuously.