Faculty Learning Communities on Research in Medical Education

Members of faculty learning communities join a community of four to six faculty members with shared interest in a medical education research area, such as:

• Artificial intelligence
• Assessment of clinical competence at the milestones
• Biomedical science education
• Diversity, equity and inclusion
• Health equity
• Interprofessional education
• Mentoring
• Pre-clinical instruction
• Telehealth
• Wellness

Each applicant will be assigned to one of the FLC groups based on the preference they identify during the application process. An experienced mentor will be assigned to guide each FLC group.

Goals

• Produce scholarly products such as:
  • Peer-reviewed journal articles
  • MedEd Portal submissions
  • Conference presentations
• Network formally and informally with other IU School of Medicine faculty interested in educational scholarship

Why join?

• Create a support network of faculty interested in conducting educational scholarship
• Collaborate with other faculty interested in conducting research on these specific research topics
• Improve skills in educational scholarship
• Learn more about available institutional resources to conduct educational scholarship

Monthly education sessions

FLC members participate in education sessions on fundamentals of medical education research. FAPD offers sessions regularly that focus on education research design, data collection, data analysis, scholarly writing and more.

Topics include:

• Introduction to medical education research
• The institutional review board (IRB)
• Quantitative research methods
• Qualitative research methods
• Program evaluation
• Survey design

Community group meetings

After being accepted into an FLC, members will be assigned a community group, based on their area of interest. These groups will meet approximately once a month via Zoom to conduct short writing sprints, check in on goals, run data analysis or complete other project tasks.

Membership roles

Planning committee members

Planning committee members are representatives from FAPD and the Office of Educational Affairs. They will:

• Arrange topics and speakers for the monthly education sessions
• Be available to support community meetings

Mentors will:

• Meet monthly with their assigned FLC and develop agendas and action items
• Facilitate conversations about setting goals and expectations
• Provide high-level support on the FLC scholarly project
• Provide guidance to the FLC group members on the research and publication process
• Help FLC group members identify appropriate publication outlets and conferences
• Serve as a liaison to the planning committee members

Community group members will:

• Attend the monthly education sessions and community group meetings
• Actively participate in community group meetings
• Commit to work between meetings to advance the project
• Work collaboratively with the mentor and other group members to brainstorm ideas on their scholarly project
• Assume responsibility for completing assigned action items
• Communicate with their mentor on specific project needs
• Work with group coordinator on timeline and assigned tasks

The community group coordinator will:

• Attend monthly community group meetings and:
  • Keep time
  • Track action items from previous meetings
  • Follow up on task assignments
• Manage FLC community group communications (including scheduling meetings, sending reminders)
• Maintain a project plan and timeline for the FLC’s group project
• Facilitate quick reflection during the last five minutes of community group meetings with mentors and members

Time commitment

Participation in an FLC will take approximately four to seven hours per month for community group members.

• One to two hours per month will be spent between the monthly education sessions (if not already completed) and the community group meetings.
• Members should expect to spend about three to five hours a month (outside of the meeting time) working on RIME FLC-related scholarship.

Because of this time commitment, all applicants are encouraged to seek support from their department chair/division director. FLC activities and outcomes can be an important part of the annual report documentation, as well as for the purposes of promotion and/or tenure.

Certifications of completion

FAPD and the Office of Educational Affairs will award certificates of completion to participants who attend at least 75 percent of their community group meetings.

• Komal Kochhar, MBBS, MHA

• Tara Hobson, PhD
• Matt Holley, PhD
• Megan Palmer, PhD