Professionalisation of teachers

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The increased need for rationalization and improved efficiency of medical education, means that teaching has to meet higher quality criteria. This includes the need for professionalization of teachers in addition to their medical, clinical and scientific qualifications.

Typical aspects of professionalization of teachers are education qualifications, educative skills training, career development, specialization and/or differentiation, education management and organization, evaluation of the education processes.

The activities in the field of professionalisation of teachers are coordinated by a reference group.

The reference group formulated a mission statement and is collecting data on the state of the art information on professionalization of teachers.

Please fill in the questionnaire to help us collect these data.

Contactperson: Ir. Jan de Koning, Nijmegen, E-mail:

 Progress reports
 Questionnaire
 Articles and reviews
 Case studies
 Favourite links
 NEW PROJECT

 Progress reports

 Introduction to the reference group: Professionalisation of teachers
 Professionalisation of teachers: Issue or non-issue

 Articles and reviews

 Mission statement
 State of the art on professionalisation of teachers at European Medical Faculties

 Case studies

 Teacher education for medicine in the United Kingdom
 Professionalisation of teachers: An example from the Portuguese situation
 Professionalisation of medical teachers: recent developments in the Netherlands

 Favourite links

PROFESSIONALISATION OF TEACHERS

The increased need for rationalization, higher efficiency and effectiveness of medical education, means that teaching has to meet higher quality standards. This induces the needs for further professionalisation of medical teachers in addition to their medical/clinical qualifications. The objectives of this reference group are to present some examples of existing programmes on teacher professionalisation including typical issues such as education qualifications, educative skills training, career development, specialization and/or differentiation, education management and organisation, evaluation of the education process; to collect information on activities on national levels in European countries; to prepare a proposal for the development of a European Committee on Professionalisation of Teachers. Members of this group are Jan de Koning and Paola Arslan.

The survey of topical programmmes and issues on teacher professionalisation, as presented during the plenary session, showed the differences between various European countries. Presentations were given by 3 invited experts working on professionalisation of teachers: Z.J. Playdon (United Kingdom), M. Patricio (Portugal) and C.M.R.G. Fluit (The Netherlands). Members participating in the workshop represented 9 different universities. Some typical questions discussed during the workshop are: How is professionalisation of teachers defined?, What are typical important aspects?, Which resistance exists against it?, Why is it important and how to promote it? How to explain - to teachers/ faculties - that teachers should be professionalised? The following scheme was introduced to make it easier to understand:

To explain in more detail to teachers/faculties why professionalisation is of importance for the quality of medical education, the members of the workshop will formulate and disseminate a mission statement. It was decided to collect also the state of the art information on professionalisation of teachers from the USA, Canada and Australia. The collected information will be published either as a monograph, or in the Newsletter and on the MED-NET homepage. During the workshop it was proposed to develop a 'European Course on Professionalisation of Teachers'.

J. de Koning

Background

There is an increased need for rationalisation and improved efficiency of medical education. This development relates to the demands of:

• the society with respect to the quality of doctors and of health care,
• students with respect to their future professional functioning,
• medical doctors with respect to professional qualifications in connection with the development of medical science.

In the context of these demands, medical teaching has to meet higher quality standards in addition to medical, clinical and scientific criteria.

The reference group

Professionalisation of medical teachers is in a variety of medical faculties in Europe in different stages of development. There is no general overview of national and international policies concerning professionalisation of medical teachers. In all countries however there is a common idea that teaching as a profession deserves more attention and further development, since it is a crucial element in the quality, efficiency, and structure of medical education.

The objective of the reference group on professionalisation of teachers is to stimulate and promote professionalisation of teachers in medicine by raising awareness concerning the issue, and by collecting and presenting structured information.

The development of new ideas concerning professionalisation are stimulated by:

• scientific results from research on teaching and learning
• actual evaluations of the quality of teaching
• new management theories and experiences
• the development and implementation of innovative educational and didactic methodologies

Concerning the characteristic aspects of professionalisation three domains are identified:

Promotion: Teaching in medicine as a profession means that the teachers should meet certain qualification criteria, and that there should be critical indicators, criteria and methods to assess the teaching performance. Demonstrating excellence in teaching has to have more impact in the curriculum vitae, and could be the reason for promotion. This implies that professional teachers have clearly defined career perspectives.

Prestige: Within the faculty organisation medical teaching in general has a low status, at least it has no professional status. Professionalisation in this context means that the organisation should create adequate conditions to increase the status of teaching with respect to the status of research. As a consequence teachers in medicine should have more possibilities or obligations for training and education in order to qualify for the specialised profession. Additionally in taking professionalisation seriously, the assessment of teaching will become increasingly important.

Payment: This factor mainly deals with the incentives for teachers to professionalise. The most important incentive at this moment is academic research. Promotion is directly related with international scientific publications. A number of faculties already introduced education awards for excellent teachers. However these awards are mostly local. It was proposed that national or even international awards should be installed. Other, more academic, incentives could be found in educational research, didactic development of courses, education congresses, and application and/or evaluation of innovative teaching technologies.

Activities

The reference group proposes the following activity plan:

1. Formulation of a mission statement. Such statement should focus on the proposition that: "Teaching in medicine should have a professional status"
2. Collection of the state of the art information. This should not be restricted to the actual situation in the European countries, but also include the US, Canada and Australia. The information concerns national policies, organisations, congresses, courses, indicators for quality, incentives, etc.
3. Presentation of the information to the MED-NET audience via the home-page, the newsletter and/or MED-NET monographs
4. On the longer term the possibilities to install an international award for medical education should be considered
5. The committee wants to stimulate and support medical faculties to initiate projects concerning the development of criteria and guidelines for good education practice, and the organisation of European courses or modules for professionalisation of teachers

P. Arslan, Padova
e-mail: /

B. Bergdahl, Linköping
e-mail:

W. Breipohl, Bonn
e-mail:

R. Cohen, Jeruzalem
e-mail:

L. Fluit, Nijmegen
e-mail:

J. de Koning, Nijmegen (coord)
e-mail:

M. Kautenburger, Ulm
e-mail:

A. Martin, Padova
fax: +39 49 876 08 20

M. Patricio, Lisboa
e-mail:

Z.J. Playdon, London
fax: 0171 831 1925

A. Valles, Barcelona
e-mail:

B. Wallstedt, Odense
e-mail:

 TITLE: Reference group Professionalisation of teachers
 CO ORDINATORS NAME: J. de Koning
 CO ORDINATING ORGANISATION: Univ. of Nijmegen
 RELEVANT REFERENCE GROUP: n.a.
 PARTNERS INVOLVED:

P. Arslan, Padova
e-mail: /

B. Bergdahl, Linköping
e-mail:

W. Breipohl, Bonn
e-mail:

R. Cohen, Jeruzalem
e-mail:

L. Fluit, Nijmegen
e-mail:

J. de Koning, Nijmegen (coord)
e-mail:

M. Kautenburger, Ulm
e-mail:

A. Martin, Padova
fax: +39 49 876 08 20

M. Patricio, Lisboa
e-mail:

Z.J. Playdon, London
fax: 0171 831 1925

A. Valles, Barcelona
e-mail:

B. Wallstedt, Odense
e-mail:

BACKGROUND / EDUCATIONAL ISSUE

It is increasingly acknowledged that having a medical qualification, medical/clinical skills and research experience, does not directly imply a professional qualification to teach in medicine. However, the professional status of medical teachers is not defined nor implemented to a high extent. Being a good medical teacher seldom counts in the career development, nor has it a prestige whithin the professional organisation of a medical (research) faculty.

We state that teachers play a crucial role in the quality of medical education. Therefore they should act and also be regarded as educational or didactic (and not merely medical) professionals.

Professionalisation of teachers has implications in two different dimensions:

1. education practice, i.e. qualification criteria, and training of education skills
2. status of education, i.e. the operational quality of the education process in terms of structure, organisation, evaluation, career development, and management.

Professionalisation means to define goals in these two dimensions, to define indicators with which the status with respect to these goals can be measured, to implement activities to improve the performance with respect to these goals, and to assess the degree in which these goals are met.

ORIGINAL AIMS / OBJECTIVES

Concerning the present situation in Europe we propose a three step approach:

• the members of our thematic group describe the state of the art in their respective countries. Such description should provide information concerning:
• national initiatives, covenants and/or agreements regarding quality evaluation, legal requirements, qualification criteria, career development, and courses
• national organisation of congresses, courses cooperation between faculties, and journals on medical education
• other aspects on a national level
• practical information such as addresses, organisation names, etc.
• On a faculty level we decided to make a small inquiry aiming to achieve an impression of the concrete activities with respect to professionalisation of teachers in medicine.
• Further we decided to inventory the courses that are offered in Europe on an international scale. We are aware of courses organised by Dundee, Linköping, Karolinska, Maastricht, Lund. We propose to the members of our group to collect the basic information concerning these courses (dates, places, contents, topics, coordinator etc.).

ACHIEVEMENTS

The group organised three workshops (Amsterdam, Lisbon and Lille).

The mission statement was developed and published on the internet

We made an inventory of the present state concerning professionalisation: an inquiry was sent to the MED-NET members. With a response of 30% we achieved a representative sample of opinions and situations at medical faculties. The results were presented at the conference in Lille and at the AMSE annual meeting at Prague. A publication is in preparation.

We also made an inventory on the policies at a national level, and concerning international activities. This inventory is still in progress.

We had contacts with the TNTEE network concerning a new project entitled EXACT: Excellence in Academic Teaching. The objective of this project is to develop a European masters course in professional teaching. The course consists of a common base course (general didactics) and various disciplinary levels.

DISSEMINATION STRATEGY

All information is collected in Nijmegen and exchanged between the partners in the group. The results are presented at conferences in Lille (MED-NET) and Prague (AMSE). They will also be published in scientific journals and newsletters of various organisations, published on the Med-Net site.

REALISED ACTIVITIES

REMARKS

The new project EXACT will be prepared and submitted to EU for funding.