Short but Mighty: The Power of the Brief Presentation

All right good afternoon everybody welcome to our health professions educator series session short but mighty the power of the brief presentation so how often have we heard the lecture is dead or something similar to indicate that we are either insulting to or harming our learners in some way by um by using the lecture uh i mean it's been said right so um well we certainly don't agree that the lecture is completely dead by any means we happen to agree to the extent that there are some limitations to the traditional lecture absolutely and that there are ways to redefine the lecture to increase the learning impact so today mariah and i uh primarily mariah are going to offer you some really practical suggestions for how to shake up your traditional lecture a bit to make it more meaningful for your learners and hopefully a little more fun for you so mariah is going to go ahead and get us rolling there will be plenty of opportunities for you to contribute throughout this discussion so please take advantage of that and really engage in the conversation um other than that take it away mariah all right awesome welcome again to everybody today's health professions educator session um like dr wicker mentioned uh we're gonna go through um this presentation short but mighty the power of the brief presentation um i think we've all fallen victim to the thought that more time with a learner more time for a lesson or more information crammed into a presentation will all lead to better learning and while complex con concepts may take more lengthy teaching encounters not all content is well suited for a one-hour lecture in fact there are many ways we can break up the traditional lecture into briefer focused teaching encounters that appeal to learners attention spans and learning preferences now this doesn't mean we should take everything we have created and abbreviated into a 15-minute interactive presentation instead we simply want you to think about the different areas you teach and how some things might fit into one of the models we'll talk about here today and perhaps how some of the concepts that we discuss can be applied in an attempt to align with the message we are conveying today i'm going i'm going to try to keep things brief focused and hopefully relevant to your teaching i'd like to start off by sharing our objectives for today um by the end of today's session participants should be able to recognize the role of a lecturer in health professions education discuss attention span research and challenges of today's learners identify theories to support a shift to abbreviated lecture times recognize several models to support shortened lectures and identify best practices and tips for health professions educators who want to shorten lectures so we hope that by the end of today's presentation you all can take the knowledge and skills we present and apply them to your own presentations and teaching so the traditional one-hour lecture is a common teaching modality that we use in health professions education while we hear a lot about other teaching tools that we can use to improve learning and appeal to learner preferences we commonly rely on the lecture to convey new information would anyone like to share why educators tend to turn to lecture feel free to use the chat or unmute to answer and i actually can't see the chat um sherry so if you if you would convey anything that'd be wonderful i got it i'm watching it like a hawk lovely but feel free to unmute as well so tradition bridget says tradition absolutely we're just used to doing it i mean that's what we've done i think comfort is a huge one it's efficient efficiency yes you guys are covering my next slide already absolutely uh uh farrell says safe prepare you're able to prepare it in advance so you've got this sort of in your back pocket you feel comfortable with that absolutely wonderful awesome yeah these are all all wonderful um wonderful reasons and like i said you covered a lot of things i already have here um but here are some of the reasons that sherry and i came up with um the lecture is historically accepted means of acquiring knowledge has been used throughout health professions education and really just education in general lecture provides an efficient means of information dissemination and both learners and teachers are comfortable with the lecture lectures provide a structured approach to student learning and engagement and also they allow for a general control and consistency um over what we're presenting so these are all super valid reasons right super encouraging reasons for us to use lectures i'm just trying to hopefully show you how to shake them up a little bit um so that they're still efficient and you can reach large groups at the same time yeah precisely um so when we rely on lectures for teaching there are several pitfalls that we may encounter um like we mentioned on the last slide you know there are good reason for us to use a lecture but sometimes when we've been giving the same lecture or talk over and over over again um there might be some things that that that we fall victim to um so what are some of the things that may go wrong when we turn to lectures as our only teaching modality the lecture by itself tends to stimulate low cognitive engagement for learners making it more difficult to move things from working to long-term memory lectures tend to be used to facilitate only the transmission transmission of knowledge and at times we may forget to foster critical thinking or higher order thinking as we get lost in the information we're presenting by using only lecture within our teaching we run the risk of losing learner attention in creating a passive learning experience and lastly we tend to try to fit in too much at times unnecessary information in the time that we have with learners so some have pronounced the lecture dead i think sherry said this in the beginning in in this era of active teaching online learning yet we know that it's still an effective teaching tool even at our own medical school and within our gme programs we utilize lecture as one piece of a more interactive learning experience this hybrid approach is used because we recognize the value of the lecture for supporting the acquisition of knowledge but we also know that it should just be one part of a diverse and balanced teaching arsenal multiple approaches should be utilized depending on content context and environment so perhaps instead of doing away with all lectures it's just time to think about how we can modify the lecture to better meet the needs of today's learners so to do this um we're going to start talking a little bit about learner attention span do we have any questions to this point um sherry not so far but david also mentioned some students actually prefer the lectures and get a little upset when they're not provided and that's so true we see this oftentimes you know sometimes they'll say students and other types of learners you know we want more active learning but then when you switch to more active learning there are also this learners who prefer like i need something to go back to i need a recorded lecture or something along those lines so very good point right and i think that goes to the point like a lot of this has to do with learner preferences right um and then also like that the lecture is just one piece of a bigger puzzle um you know it's not just the one size fits all way of teaching our learners but but that it's still an important way to convey information so um i'm hopefully not going to say at any point um or or reply at any point that we should do away with all lectures because i don't think we should do that but um all right so uh we're gonna talk a little bit about learner attention span next so we often hear about the shortening attention spans of today's learners generally generational differences and technology are often mentioned as a cause but what does the research really tell us well there's lots of literature out there that tells us that attention spans aren't necessarily changing but instead preferences for format of learning are evolving so how we teach has a big impact on learner attention span so unchanged visual physical auditory stimuli can have a negative effect on attention as well as putting too much demand on working memory and we'll talk about working memory here in just a little bit um so while attention span might not be changing it still probably is shorter than we realize um or maybe maybe everyone does recognize that attention span is short but i think there's some interesting literature out there about it um so some studies place lapses in attention anywhere from five to eighteen minutes from the beginning of a lecture some say the maximum level of concentration may be 10 to 15 minutes in a lecture other research suggests attention span for learners is 8 to 10 minutes with learners focusing in short bursts with um with even more putting typical learner attention spans somewhere in 15 to 20 minutes with a sharp drop after 20. so what we're seeing is that attention tends to diminish for content and presentations longer than 15 minutes when focused on a single topic with the ideal lecture length being listed as somewhere between 20 to 30 minutes however we do see there's a little bit of a learner disconnect a 2015 study showed that learners reported good or above average attention in concentration for a two-hour lecture but when they looked at the data from assessments um it actually suggested that there was a drop in attention span after about the first five minutes with another sharp drop um after about 10 to 18 minutes so while learner attention spans may not last for an entire one-hour lecture we should also recognize that attention is tied to learner preferences both for the specific educator and the chosen format of teaching in recognizing this educators can appeal to evolving learner preferences and needs by creating more learner-centered activities use like utilizing a variety of teaching models and recognizing the impact of how we present information today's learners who have grown up in during the age of technology do prefer quick information and while these attention spans seem brief the lecture doesn't need to stop we just need to shift to a new topic a new area or potentially a new activity to break up that one hour to keep interest going so in addition to attention span what else supports the modification of the traditional lecture so we're going to look at a few things so first we're going to talk a little bit about working memory working memory is a cognitive system that works to retain small amounts of information in a readily accessible form working memory has limited capacity and is used to facilitate planning comprehension reasoning and problem solving when learners encounter new information or concepts they use their working memory to process and integrate new information with existing knowledge to form long-term memories as a long lecture goes by more information is added putting strain on working memory and making processing more difficult especially the processing for the material that was presented at the earlier part of the lecture let learners turn tend to tune out after about 20 minutes because more information means more processing for their working memory unfamiliar information and new concepts are processed by working memory before combining with existing knowledge to move to long-term memory um to do this requires both attention focus and the manipulation of new connections so in prolonged lectures um it means more information requires more processing which leads to decreased capacity to effectively and efficiently process new material um next we're going to talk a little bit about adult learning theory so developed by oh i'm sorry cognitive load i'm my my slides got away from me um sorry about that uh developed by john sweller in the 1980s cognitive load theory refers to the amount of working memory that we can hold it describes the resources used by working memory to perform tasks types of cognitive load include intrinsic extraneous and germane cognitive load intrinsic cognitive load refers to the difficulty or complexity of the content extraneous cognitive load refers to how information is presented such as what learning materials are used what's the learning environment and are there any distractions that might impact learning your main cockton load refers to the processing of information to the processing of information when our working memory is able to link new information with information we currently have stored in long-term memory learning often involves many different types of cognitive load and creating too much cognitive load by presenting complex content in an unorganized fashion can lead to difficulties in learning however we can use instructional design methods to reduce the cognitive load for our learners teaching should help to create connections to previously learned materials it should be clear and concise and organized and broken down into chunks when possible to help reduce extraneous cognitive load so if you're thinking about like a long lecture you're thinking about one hour and folks are sitting held captive and what does that do to the extraneous load that really increases the extraneous load so you may be getting calls you may be getting distracted with other things the sounds in the room maybe start to enter that's why you've got to break it up with different uh different activities different things to mitigate that impact on the intrinsic load and all of these different things work together to minimize the cognitive load altogether thank you all right now we're going to talk about adult learning so developed by malcolm knowles in uh 1968 adult learning theory or andragogy is the concept of or study of how adults learn and how it differs from how children learn adult learners crave control for what when and how they learn connection to experiences and previous knowledge opportunities for problem solving and reasoning and then the creation of relevance and applicability to their lives adult learning theory tells us that jolt learners prefer self-directed learning approaches that shift the learning from the lecture to more independent experiences and really that self-directed learning doesn't have to be something that's totally outside sometimes that helps something outside the lecture but if you involve some sort of self-direction or ownership within the lecture um that can be just equally as helpful that's a great point um so many of you have likely taught in several of these domains and most recently have taught in an online environment given the shift created by the pandemic and generally speaking we recognize that clinical or bedside teaching doesn't utilize traditional lectures and appeals to many of the preferences of adult learners but when we think about online or classroom teaching what are some things you could do to improve learning in those venues based on the theories we have discussed so far and again feel free to unmute or put something in the chat holes marcus speaker says including polls within your lecture absolutely that is a great way to increase the activity within the online learning environment one one thing that you want to make sure to avoid though is just having a pull and then moving on if you have a poll um you at least want to relate it to the content in some way but great great point um somebody else says making them case-based introducing cases within the lecture absolutely and i think as sherry and i were going through this presentation we talked about case-based learning a lot and how a lot of these concepts can um are are involved in that so that's a great example yep jen says have small group work then have groups present their results absolutely that can get a little tricky depending on your group in the online environment oftentimes um you will go into breakout rooms and then all of a sudden your participant list decreases quite significantly which is the same in person right so you're in a big uh lecture hall and you're giving a lecture all of a sudden um people that oh oh my phone's ringing nobody loves the small group or role player or anything like that but um it depends on who your audience is uh small group breakouts after giving a prompter case absolutely breakout discussions dyads i love the diet just turn to your partner for one minute and share something significant just uh just a different way to shape something up think pair share um great way to do that so awesome thank you guys for hearing um so now that we've explored some theory we want to talk about some basic concept concepts that we can apply to our lecturers to create meaningful yet potentially briefer teaching encounters um so for those of you who joined us uh last week um for our education day keynote sessions you heard dr sumaraki just discuss the concept of space practice so space practice reverse refers to presenting content in shorts based instances it suggests that we can improve learning by breaking up lessons into smaller sessions allowing opportunities for application um as dr sumaraki mentioned there is no ideal time to allow between space learning instances but any time that we can offer and offer um some time and potentially the opportunity for learners to sleep in between is helpful um and then the other concept is chunking which refers to breaking down teaching into smaller components um in chunking we focus on one concept at a time and only provide the most important aspects of the topic to learners additionally the content presented is provided with meaningful context so we know in medicine um in healthcare it's not always feasible to talk about just one concept in isolation but instead identifying a main overarching concept that may be permeated throughout others can be identified um so how do these concepts relate to your current teaching practice do you break up your teaching between concepts by sharing practical examples or maybe you allow opportunities for learners to make connections i think some of you probably are already doing these things but you just might not necessarily recognize it formally is anybody practicing these actively or planning to since you heard last week's uh discussion by dr samraki led by dr sumraki are there ways that you envision being able to incorporate these into your current teaching practices i i like to think even uh you know i know that she mentioned that if you can incorporate sleep if there's sleep in between the space practice uh that's ideal i know that that's not always feasible within our environment but even if you have like an academic half day right that's a long time to be learning into sitting in a session if you can do some space practice some space repetition throughout um that four hours or however long i think that is super valuable for learners as well yeah coming back to the topic you presented early and connecting it to what you you're talking about at hour two or hour three i think that simple things like that can can be meaningful so absolutely so haven't heard these terms but seems like a great way to proceed um jen beth says my dmp project is studying this nice we look forward really quick jen um short simulations alternating with short bursts of focus education that's awesome um frank dane mentions definitely plan to promote more sleep between learning opportunities absolutely we just have some additional learning opportunities um about how important sleep is um this is ellen harvey of jen and i beth and i also do something that we call drive by in services you know we're trauma nurses so he's kind of a funny name to it we can't hear you anymore ellen you went away when you took off your um your headphones are you back can't hear me with the headphones and i saw you straight anyways we do something called drive by in services kind of some trauma nurse humor but uh so for example we're doing uh we did a formal like powerpoint presentation something recently on vasopressin infusions and so now what we do like i came in on the night shift this week and we do the little drive-by so we say okay what is it why do we use it um what are the major implications for practice and then we look at a patient who's actually on it and so it really makes it click which is sort of the concept of how you apply it in just a short snippet you know can literally be like five or ten minutes but it makes it really meaningful ellen i love that is that something you all um are doing some sort of study on you're going to do some sort of scholarship related to that it sounds like fascinating jen we need another project one more project we've actually been doing it right your tongue and bite your tongue it's really sounds bad it is very effective it is but anyways wonderful example thank you ellen were there any others sherrier uh nope that was it i got through them all fantastic all right so we've explored some data on attention span we've looked at some theory um and uh also looked at some concepts that we can apply to create you know more brief focused teaching encounters and as we move forward there i think there are a few key things that we should remember as we consider modifying the traditional lecture so while brevity is important for busy learners who are learning very complex information um we don't just want to make it brief it also has to be meaningful um so simply shorter isn't better um we need to to encourage meaning um uh to their practice into their daily lives so we can help to foster meaning by creating interest and relevance to learn or practice another important thing to remember is breaking up teaching into chunks which allows learners the opportunity to better digest new information and and to move it into their long-term memory these chunks should be brief and well-organized um and lastly we should identify what's important and provide only the necessary information so we need to rely on our our learners as adult learners who will seek and find more information based on their needs and you missed one little step is that being intentional that's so important is having that intentional step in making sure that that is a part of every learning experience you know um there will be offhanded learning experiences absolutely on the fly but but inserting intention into the meaningfulness of your activities is going to be super important and your learners will feel that awesome yeah very important thank you sherry um so as we hope we have conveyed so far it's not just about being short but um allowing for focus intention organization relevance and and brevity for um for our learners so as you prepare your presentations or lectures important it's important to remember that we don't need to teach our medical students health professions um help professional learners or residents everything we just need to focus on the things that they need to know to meet their learning objectives so as we're doing this um let's we can think about some models that we can use to support these changes um to create brief presentations um to add to your your teaching um repertoire so some of these practical um applications um help us to organize our our teaching um to appeal to learn our attention spans the cognitive theories we've discussed um and the teaching concepts that we've looked at so today we're going to look at four well formulated practical models to modify your own teaching if you if you so desire um so these models can be applied to traditional one two hour lectures or other teaching encounters um now we aren't suggesting that you recreate all or any of your lectures to fit any of these models however if you're feeling ambitious or interested um these are some approaches you can use to create real short lectures in meaningful ways um so the models we're going to talk about today um are micro learning um pecha kucha uh ted talks and snippets and i i i'm gonna assume some of you guys are probably familiar with with some of these and probably less familiar with others but we're just gonna touch on like the the highlights of each of these models so um we're going to start with micro learning um so micro learning is a model that includes bite size engaging short learning interactions it promotes the creation of short focused presentations that include just the necessary information necessary to meet learning goals and i think this goes back to the um the what what sherry was saying about being intentional so um it very much uh calls for being intentional about the content that we put into each of the um the learning uh the learning um or the teaching instances that are created so irrelevant or extra information is eliminated um to make learning more digestible so multiple micro learning activities can be used to replace what you might typically cover in uh in a one-hour lecture so we can find find examples of micro learning in social media so sometimes you'll see like teaching twitter threads where little bits of information are used to engage in discussion about very focused topics and then also podcasts are a good example of micro learning where they present very focused topics in short 10 15 minute instances and they might cover like a broader topic um in in multiple podcasts over time um so micro learning look uh what it looks like so micro learning uh instances address one to two learning objectives and only cover key concepts they include um presentation in the coolest media so images videos visuals um just only include the just in time information that is relevant for your learners um and then each micro learning session lesson is is should be between three and seven minutes in length so the cool thing about all four of these techniques um are that that as mariah mentioned they're well formulated they have a really prescriptive um like recipe for application so while they may seem challenging to implement they've got some boxes you can check um for those of you who love to check boxes but they end up being very meaningful because this recipe makes it so that it's very intentional your process is all very intentional precisely all right so next one is pecha kucha uh has anyone ever heard of the pecha kucha model before i think it's probably a lesser known one um but maybe there's a few of you out there actually one of our um i think one of our education grand round speakers a couple years ago might have actually mentioned it in passing during one of her presentations um so you may have heard of it there but dr turner and i had never heard of it um until then and then i really forgot about it and didn't remember it until we started discussing but it is oh sarah loves to use pecha kucha oh okay brave brave soul yes so uh yeah pecha kucha is japanese for chitchat and it was created several years ago by um tokyo designers um and they used it so presenters to ship could share ideas and projects i'm using a really quick simple 20 by 20 format so that means 20 slides appear for 20 seconds each um the slides are very visual the presenter again only has 20 seconds before the next slide automatically appears and the whole presentation wraps up in 6 minutes and 40 seconds um i'm sorry i thought somebody was speaking up but um the pecha kucha model eliminates the overuse of text and presentations um and it essentially consists of an elevator pitch so it's concise and brief and again only the key points are included the model uses imagery and storytelling to convey the message again it's a structured well formulated prescriptive model but remember we're just sharing different approaches that that we can't try um you don't have to use the exact format of pecha kucha um but instead you could challenge yourself to incorporate some of the concepts into one of your teaching encounters um the important thing is to structure a brief presentation so that it's focused and concise um and and stick to the limits that you establish for yourself so you might say like i'm gonna try a 30 by 30 um modified pecha kucha for for a future talk but um if you're actually going to do pecha kucha again it is 20 seconds 20 slides um very rapid fire i would imagine that that's very challenging to do the first time or the first few times but how cool would it be if that would were to become a regular model that you use for certain certain concepts uh john sweet says the american college of physician says pachacucha oh very cool i tried it once a few years ago and failed takes a lot of prep and practice i imagine that it does i imagine but if we had somebody here who could um provide examples of how it's done well that would be outstanding so yeah anybody yeah forced concision i find to be very hard so it's not my strong suit so i think i can the challenge um yeah it's sort of like i i think in in uh a more extreme way is when you think about it's much easier to come up with an hour-long presentation than a 10-minute summary of what you want to talk about so um or two-minute elevator speech but i think everything in the moment feels important until you're like you know sharing and they're like maybe this wasn't the most important thing so i think reevaluating and and looking at our own teaching is important regardless if we're gonna fit into one of these models or just look at it to remove any kind of extraneous information that maybe hasn't been meaningful for your learners so um here is um an example of a slide deck for a pecha kucha presentation um as you you can see it's very visual it contains very few words and has animation set to automatically advance the slides um the slides include very thought-provoking words and imagery meant to elicit you know uh reactions from from uh learners right you can see there are certain words that we wouldn't necessarily include within our own presentations but they're meant to uh evoke a reaction so um i think they can be very effective um if applied correctly all right so next up we have ted talks so i'm sure most of you are familiar with ted talks but likely a few of us have created one of our own um i don't know maybe someone here has created a ted talk has anyone um tried taking one on in the past maybe not maybe not like a sponsored one but i have never i've been fascinated by them they're fabulous they are and i think that's what you know that that's the idea they're super memorable presentations um i think everyone remembers at least one ted talk that they've listened to that like sticks with them no matter what um and they're they're framed in a persuasive um style that promotes curiosity and discussion um the key elements of a ted talk include structure so ted talk scripts can should contain a clear introduction middle end um brevity so they call for just including one major idea and focus on that major the major point being made um and then a clear purpose so within a ted talk you have to prove your main idea and convey its purpose so it's clear concise and share why the idea matters um ted talks grab the learner's attention and create relevance with stories anecdotes examples illustrations um and then the length of a ted talk is just long enough for cleric clarification and to drive home key points so they are less than 18 minutes and focus on one main idea and there are lots of instructional videos out there for how to um create an effective ted talk yeah and there's actually um some really good books out there as well i think we have some in our offices um if anyone is interested in looking at one so absolutely all right and then the last model we're going to look at is the snippets model and i think this is perhaps one that some of you may be more familiar with um and again it's a structured format for creating brief presentations snippets uh presentations are limited 20 minutes in length and are focused on again a single topic or skill um snippet presentations are 10 slides max and include a title slide the learning objectives the key learning points a brief activity a brief activity which could be a discussion or another means of applying knowledge and then wraps up with take-home points so i love this model um and i actually did a presentation with the authors of this uh this paper and we did our whole presentation in different snippets it's really not nearly as difficult to um to implement as some of the other models it's it's very straightforward and um and when you're going through it the elements of your talk naturally fit into each of those slides so i encourage you to try this one i think it's really one of the easiest to apply yeah maybe start with snippets and then move to pecha kucha when you feel more comfortable um so now that we've reviewed several different models through a format you know a lecture can anyone think of a current lecture that you could modify or maybe uh an old lecture that you've given in the past that you can modify using one of these models um and if you can think of one share a little bit about why you selected this lecture um and which model you might use uh to um to mix it up uh so again feel free to chat or unmute and share there's somebody else that i've used a clip from ted in lecture oh yeah so that's a good way to um to spice it up just interject within your lecture with somebody else talking yeah embed a ted talk within your own presentation absolutely we've seen uh actually some of our pres our national presenters who have come from edu for education grand rounds have done that as well yeah i think oh gosh was it i think it was dr mcallister used um angela duckworth her grit um ted talk or a portion of that ted talk within a presentation i know lots of you do lectures right now uh frank said i've converted most of my social psychology course to five to ten minute videos i love that so um frank uh does that mean that they watch them asynchronously and then do you get back together as a group to talk it out or is it just for them to um review on their own asynchronous online course okay got it so you never revisit you don't have to come back and talk or do you have them engage at all um with one another in some uh chats online yeah there's a there's a discussion there's discussion software and they talk about it uh but it's not a it's not a class that meets uh synchronously got it okay great but they are uh they're processing the information on their own and then bringing it to each other so sort of talking it out yeah there is a discussion uh board that that also is part of that is required right i love that i think that's an important element too yeah um so i think like shari said she's applied some of these before used them and we've tried out some of these models in in different venues so if you start applying one to your own teaching and you get stuck um feel free to reach out we're happy to have a conversation and think through um which one might be best or how we can modify them to fit whatever the topic area or the learning environment is that you might want to apply it to so yes it does sound sometimes like an insurmountable task to take you know lectures that you've had for years and years um and do something different with them but sometimes that's what you need to freshen it up to make it to bring it current if you are updating some of your lectures just for content um happy to think this through with you just to sit down and have a conversation about which might be the best approach um and how we can help redesign it um in some ways or to just interject some of these activities um to break up your traditional lecture a little bit yep all right so uh in the fact in the past um 30 40 minutes we've looked at models theory attention span um so i guess the question is are you convinced that incorporating some brief presentations into your teaching is beneficial um so here are some reasons we have looked at that support why we think representations within your teaching may be meaningful so the traditional lengthy lecture can lead to reduced retention and engagement but by using several modalities including both short and long presentations of information we can help facilitate um the transmission of more complex topics for our learners learners have more responsibilities today and constantly have new things thrown onto their plate in less time and as educators we can um help by evolving to attend to this increased demand by incorporating brief learning experiences into traditional teaching so fitting more information into one hour doesn't mean it will be more meaningfully retained but as we've said it's important to remember that lectures are still an important tool for teaching but just not the only tool that we should use so now that we've reviewed the theory behind why and the models that we can use to shorten a lecture how do we create teaching encounters that are brief but powerful as we've said we don't expect everyone to take their lectures and reformat each of them using these models however we think that we can use some of the practical practical concepts from these model models to help improve some improve our lectures to appeal to adult learners to today's learner attention spans and to the principles of cognitive psychology creating short teaching activities can help to support learning but this doesn't mean giving up the time that we have with learners instead it can help us to make the most out of the time that we are given by chunking concepts into shortened sections reorganizing the content we're presenting to eliminate extraneous information and including activities that increase engagement and relevance in place of a traditional one-hour sage on the stage lecture some practical tips for ensuring meaningful learning while including brief presentations as part of your teaching can include short isn't enough so simply making something short isn't what we're looking for consider more than just the length think about the relevance the connection the activities included etc so think how will learners use this information and how does it apply to everyday practice redesign your own thinking and preparation so focusing our content eliminating extraneous information as we prepare adding images videos stories and interactive activities in place of any unnecessary content that we might remove focusing our teaching on individual digestible chunks by presenting one concept or idea at a time make sure to focus slides to make them specific brief and meaningful engaging our learners so to appeal to short attention spans it is important to engage learners using visuals to enhance your message grab attention and reduce monotony using hybrid teaching approaches to break up learning is a helpful tool um soliciting discussion engagement from learners and then trying to limit our lecture elements to 10 to 15 minutes when we can um supplement um so supplementing our tools and resources maybe outside of our teaching interactions um can help to support the self-directed learning of our students and then lastly plan and practice your presentations identify what you want to include what what's worked well in the past what might be more relevant for learners today and organize how you'll present on this information and how learners will engage with it so one of the comments in the chat before you even started this slide said it seems good to extract the best portion of the lecture for micro learning and then save the less necessary info or slides etc um and that's pretty much what you're saying here just you know get the the most meat out of everything put that in a micro learning then you no one says you can't have discussion about that following following a micro learning or a snippet that that actually would be an excellent approach to making the most of these techniques great point thank you um so i have some references um here and this will be posted online um thank you guys for your time again i did try to keep it brief so we have a good chunk of time here at the end for questions if anybody has any um if you're interested in applying any of these models uh please feel free to reach out to us um or our team and we'd be happy to chat it through um we we want to encourage you to you know try out maybe not in like the the rigid form of any of the way that they are presented some of these models maybe start with snippets or um creating some short micro learning activities and see how things go from there again we don't expect everyone to abandon the lecture the lecture has a place and is very meaningful um but but there are some ways to to shape things up a little bit so that's what we wanted to share with you guys here today so does anybody have any questions or any points for discussion before we wrap things up i'm going to stop sharing so i can see everybody nice so i have a i have a question and a comment the comment is i really appreciate your presentation it's very well done thank you with a lot of great ideas the payoff it seems to me is retention yeah several of your comments sort of addressed the issue of retention and i wonder if there's evidence or if some of your references have done studies that would indicate in a more formal way which of these methods are the best in terms of knowledge retention and i guess related to that is a question about which which method works the best with which audience i mean it's one thing to say we'll do a snippet with medical students and then another thing to say you'll do it in a cme format for practicing physicians so i guess that's really two questions sorry yeah no those are great questions and no i i don't i didn't look at you know the the applicability or the which group um most meaningful for any of these i think a lot of them have been used across like the educational spectrum um but i i i can find and i'm happy to follow up with evidence for which might be most meaningful for which group of learners but that's not something um that's not something that i uh have was deeply looking for i guess when i was putting this together i was just kind of trying to find generalizable um models that i thought that that educators across the spectrum could use but i don't know if it's out there um but that could be a great future study just um which ones work best in the different uh in the different venues for the different level of learner um what was the second part of that question david i'm sorry i think you addressed it i think it was um which which method works with which groups you know and it's it's really kind of hard to say i guess but yeah i don't have a good answer but i'm happy to find one yeah well my guess would be the these methods have probably not been studied extensively so you know we always talk about best evidence medical education and sometimes it's hard to find that evidence so but on the other hand it gives a lot of opportunities to to to design the studies and and carry them out so that's good yeah absolutely future directions for studies we're creating projects for gen creating projects for us all in one presentation and your present your presentation was at least 10 or 12 minutes more brief than the usual so you practice what you preach today that was my intention great job great job anybody else does anybody have any thoughts questions concerns suggestions or is anyone going to leave here today and go take one of these models and apply it mariah one thing i just wanted to mention is that if you are an educator who's looking for a way to model these particular um types of teaching you can do so by not only modeling it in your classroom but then asking your learners to utilize that same technique to produce a deliverable um so that you can assess their learning which then kind of pays it forward and that they now know how to utilize that particular type of um teaching technique yeah i mean that's a great idea sarah asking medical students to create like a snippet on a topic um to present their um yeah to their fellow really well yeah micro learning um particularly if you want them to just to cat you know just to be able to explain like the the meat of of what they've learned that would be a great idea for your learners to not only briefly concisely share the information that they've learned or that you're asking inviting them to share with the group uh but also preparing them to uh teach teaching is a part of medicine so great idea all right as we mentioned several times we're here for you if you want to try some of these either want us to observe and you know troubleshoot we're happy to do that or just think some things out with you uh let us know other than that i hope you all have a wonderful day thank you mariah you did a fabulous job thank you guys have a wonderful rest of the day everyone.