RSOM Faculty Development Guide: Start a Teaching Renaissance

There are three levels of interprofessional practice and education integration.

• Exposure level - Introductory learning activities that provide learners with the opportunity to interact and learn from professionals and peers from disciplines beyond their own. The desired outcome for activities offered at the exposure level is that learners will gain a deeper understanding of their own profession while gaining an appreciation for the perspective and roles of other professions.
• Immersion level - Consists of development learning activities that provide learners with the opportunity to learn about, with, and from other professional learners in an active learning situation where they are applying learning during the activity. The desired outcome for activities offered at the immersion level is that learners will develop critical thinking skills as part of an interprofessional view that incorporates multiple perspectives and acknowledges and encourages diversity in providing quality health and human services.
• Mastery (Competence) level - Consists of practice-ready learning activities where learners will integrate their interprofessional education and collaborative knowledge and skills in an authentic team-based care environment. These activities will have learners actively engaged in team decision-making around patient/client, family, and/or community care. The desired outcome for activities offered at the competence level is development of competent practice-ready healthcare providers.

Below are Different IPE Learning Activities:

• Case-Based Learning (CBL) - A broad approach used across disciplines where learners and/or students apply their knowledge to real-world scenarios, promoting higher levels of cognition (per Bloom’s Taxonomy). In CBL classrooms, students often work in groups on case studies, stories involving one or more characters, and/or scenarios.
• Experiential Learning - (a) Learning by doing (and not just observing); (b) experiential learning exists when a personally responsible participant cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally processes knowledge, skills, and/or attitudes in a learning situation characterized by a high level of active involvement; (c) occurs when learners develop meaning, shift paradigms, and reflect upon own understanding; (d)experiential learning, which is about the application knowledge, in contrast to cognitive learning, which is academic knowledge; (e) this can also refer to learning that occurs as part of a formal educational program in clinical, nonclinical, or community settings.
• Service Learning - A form of experiential education in which two or more professions engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote active and reflective learning about, from, and with each other to enable collaboration and improve health outcomes.
• Simulation Learning - The process wherein trainees practice a procedure or routine in an immersive, guided, replicated, learning environment before treating actual patients/clients. Simulations attempt to replace or augment real-world encounters with standardized, guided experiences that evoke or replicate substantial aspects of patient care in a fully interactive manner for all learners to experience the same.
• Observation Learning - Method of learning that consists of observing and modeling a professional’s behaviors, attitudes, or emotional expressions. Four conditions are necessary in any form of observing and modeling behavior: attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. It may also be referred to as ‘shadowing.'
• Problem-Based Learning (PBL) - Can be loosely regarded as one type of CBL. However, PBL uses discovery learning where learners devise their own learning objectives based on problems from the case. (PBL started in medical education but is used more broadly now). Student teams work together, learn together, and work through a pre-defined case with their small-group facilitator. This involves only a small team and PBL facilitator.
• Team-Based Learning (TBL) - Can loosely be regarded as one type of CBL. However, TBL is a very specific approach involving multiple small teams of (6-10) students. In TBL, students take a quiz individually before a session (Individual Readiness Assurance Test) and then as a team (Team Readiness Assurance Test). Thereafter, student teams work through a case, and then large-group discussion ensues from a course instructor. This could involve a didactic class session of, for example, 150 students divide into 15 small teams, with 10 students per team.

Some Things to Consider When Planning IPE Activities:

• Intentional, planned learning
• Interprofessional faculty collaboration
• Student engagement when possible
• Start with IPEC competencies as goals and IHI Quintuple Aim
  • Link to IPEC Competencies
  • Link to Article about IHI Quintuple Aim
• Scaffolding learning opportunities to match student’s level of competency
• Low stakes vs. high stakes
• Multi-level opportunities
• Small group design
• Assessment and feedback

• Team-based IPEC competencies
  • Roles and responsibilities
  • Professional communication
  • Values/ethics
  • Teams and teamwork
• Critical thinking skills
• Self-efficacy
• Humility – appreciate one’s knowledge, training and expertise as well as the limits of their profession
• Respect and value - the training and contributions of other professions to patient, community and population health
• Cultural awareness and humility
• Awareness of social justice issues, health equity and social determinants of health
• Self-awareness of bias, assumptions and hierarchical thinking that impact collaboration. 

• Interprofessional faculty
  • Role model: 
  • IPEC competencies
  • Appreciating and valuing the contributions of other professions 
  • Equity and inclusion
  • Promoting the value of team formation
  • Conflict resolution
  • Shared leadership
• Supportive and inclusive learning environment
• Create psychological safety
• Debriefing for self-awareness, critical thinking skills, and team-based skills focused on the learner’s experience
• Note: This is not a time for lecturing.

Exposure 

• Introduce IPEC competencies and provide context in the curriculum 
• Guest speakers case conferencing around a patient
• Videos of interprofessional team collaboration
• Shadowing IP teams 
• IP problem-based learning
• Small group work
• Reflection assignments

Immersion

• IP case-based learning without simulation
• Simulation
• Intentional IPE service learning 
• Experiential learning

Competence level

• Clerkship
• Rotations
• Residency