A Virtual Cohort Model for Developing Faculty Scholarship in Early-Career Faculty (original) (raw)

Developing a Scholarship Community

Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 2005

Purpose:To report the results of a multidisciplinary, interinstitutional writing support group established to facilitate faculty scholarly productivity.Organizing Concept:The road to scholarship can be filled with many obstacles, among them time constraints, teaching and meeting demands, student needs, office interruptions, and lack of colleagueship. The problems associated with lack of colleagueship, in particular, can be compounded for faculty who work in isolated contexts with few, if any, senior faculty to serve as mentors.Methods of Development:The Western Writers Coercion Group evolved over a 2-year period from a small group of nursing faculty at a single institution to include, by its second year, 21 faculty from five western university campuses and three academic disciplines. The group met biweekly via teleconference with the objectives of defining and accomplishing realistic individual scholarship goals and providing a forum for the critical exchange of ideas.Results:The ongoing support and mentoring of the group led to significant writing outcomes in the form of manuscripts submitted for publication, abstracts submitted for conference presentation, grant proposals developed, and collegial relationships formed.Discussion:Although the benefits of group participation varied somewhat for faculty at different points in the career trajectory, they seemed to accrue at all levels of development. Group members underscored the many less quantifiable advantages of group participation: exposure to broader professional perspectives, the formation of key professional relationships, the enrichment of multidisciplinary input, and individualized assistance with time management, goal setting, and actual drafts.Conclusions:The structure and experience of this group, which continues to meet regularly, might be a model to guide other groups of scholars who face geographic isolation and who struggle with balancing time and work and finding motivation for the process of writing.

Promoting Faculty Scholarship – An evaluation of a program for busy clinician-educators

Canadian Medical Education Journal

Background: Clinician educators face barriers to scholarship including lack of time, insufficient skills, and access to mentoring. An urban department of family medicine implemented a federally funded Scholars Program to increase the participants’ perceived confidence, knowledge and skills to conduct educational research.Method: A part-time faculty development model provided modest protected time for one year to busy clinician educators. Scholars focused on designing, implementing, and writing about a scholarly project. Scholars participated in skill seminars, cohort and individual meetings, an educational poster fair and an annual writing retreat with consultation from a visiting professor. We assessed the increases in the quantity and quality of peer reviewed education scholarship. Data included pre- and post-program self-assessed research skills and confidence and semi-structured interviews. Further, data were collected longitudinally through a survey conducted three years after ...

A Teaching Scholars Program to Develop and Sustain Faculty Engagement in Education Research

There are various models for teaching scholars programs in medical education but all aim to enhance faculty knowledge of and confidence in scholarship as well as teaching and/or assessment skills. Lave and Wenger’s concept of communities of practice is defined by their joint enterprise (mission or purpose); mutual engagement (interaction and shared meaning); and a shared repertoire of tools, resources, experience and practice. This concept provided the foundation for what is called learning communities, an effective model for designing teaching scholars programs . The University of Arizona Teaching Scholars Program is based on these principles. Moreover, project-based learning is a supportive and motivating construct that has proven successful in some faculty development programs aimed at developing leadership qualities . An important goal is to enhance self-efficacy. In other words, by the time faculty complete the program, they should feel more knowledgeable and capable of carrying on scholarship in their day-to-day professional lives. It is also important to identify and avoid or address dynamics that might hinder learning in such communities of practice.4 One dynamic that may interfere with learning is the introduction of hierarchical position in the group dynamic. Some studies have shown that it may hinder the distribution of ideas among members and in moving novice members from peripheral to central participation in the community’s endeavors. In other words, to foster learning, the community should have the full egalitarian participation of its members. The AMES /OMSE Teaching Scholars Program addresses both of these considerations successfully.