The Virtual Educator

Interview with an Education Innovator: Insights for Faculty Looking to Teach Differently

By Alexis del Vecchio MD on behalf of the SAEM Virtual Presence Committee

COVID has upended how education medicine (EM) didactics to a virtual is delivered. Over the next year, this learning environment. He has also cocolumn will interview innovators created several virtual reality initiatives. in academic emergency medicine education. For this issue we interviewed (virtually!) Venkatesh R. Bellamkonda, Tell us a bit about yourself and your path to emergency MD, an assistant professor in medicine education. emergency medicine at Mayo Clinic, I have been who shares insights for instructors involved in to deliver engaging virtual content to education since learners. Dr. Bellamkonda has been 2005. I was involved in education since 2005. He the Curriculum was the curriculum director for the Director for the Quality Academy at Mayo Clinic, which Quality Academy involved teaching healthcare quality to at Mayo Clinic, more than 60,000 learners across the enterprise and served as the chair of Venkatesh R. Bellamkonda which involves teaching education for all of Mayo’s emergency healthcare quality to more than 60,000 department (ED) service lines. Most learners across the enterprise. I serve recently, Dr. Bellamkonda shepherded as the chair of education for all of our the transition of Mayo’s emergency emergency department (ED) service lines. Most recently, I shepherded the transition of our emergency medicine (EM) didactics to a virtual learning environment. I also have co-created several virtual reality initiatives.

Embrace the power of performance and engage your learners. How do you make your virtual lectures?

I taught ultrasound via Zoom to medical students. I knew my delivery had to be over the top. If I use hand gestures, if I use inflection, my delivery is more meaningful and efficacious. Be animated and aware of your speech. Don’t speak in monotone. Include striking visuals. Tell a story utilizing your physicality

and emotionality so you can create an experience that augments the talk. These are frankly the same challenges we faced pre-COVID.

How can you maximize your presence when teaching virtually?

You have to be aware of the camera. Don’t look down. I also have a separate screen with my speaker notes that I put close to the camera. I try to memorize participants’ names. There might be resistance to mandating cameras from participants, but I would recommend doing so, if possible. You can also use virtual backgrounds.

How do you keep learners engaged in the talk?

For one of my lectures, I asked learners to pick a word that’s very challenging to use in common sentences. They picked anachronistic. I weaved the word in and asked them to raise their hand or give me a thumbs up when they heard it. You can even just intertwine people’s names. When I see someone zoning out, I might say “Alexis would put the transducer right here.” Not calling you out, but bringing your consciousness back into the talk.

Welcome constructive feedback. What is your advice to facilitate learner-centered virtual didactics?

Learners expect a lecturer to stand at a podium and deliver content via a slide show. If they are exposed to a different way of learning, just because it’s not the product they expect, they will be more critical of it. Also, the teacher may not be comfortable doing it, so they can look uncomfortable, rigid, or tentative. Whenever faced with an educational endeavor, I ask myself: “What does the learner need?” and “What resources, including platforms and time, are available?” Then I match my content and approach to these answers.

What if your initiative is not well received? How do you get over negative feedback?

The difference between a really successful educational product and one that everyone thinks is horrible might be very small. Recognize you may not be far from being effectual, think about whether the product can be converted, and don't abandon it. As an innovator, you cannot be deterred by negative feedback. Also, ask yourself if the person providing you with feedback has actually thought about your goals.

What unexpected opportunities does our new virtual environment provide?

Since transitioning to Zoom and Google Classroom we’ve seen a 30 percent increase in participation in all levels of didactics, including Grand Rounds. We’re now getting viewers from the greater Mayo Health system. Next, I hope we can have early adopters at our sites in Arizona and Florida. Imagine the level of quality dialogue when we involve others from our community sites and around the world!

Utilize the full breadth of virtual platforms. Can faculty be efficacious combining live teaching and virtual platforms?

I video recorded Drs. Rich Levitan and Ken Butler for our annual Levitan Airway Course for about five hours of content. I edited down and created interactions between them and included case-based vignettes and questions, coming up with an asynchronous module for knowledge review and acquisition. We still conducted the hands-on donor body lab portion utilizing masks and social distancing. This approach actually resulted in higher satisfaction scores from learners, reduced operational costs for the department, and the instructors enjoyed the experience as well.

To this end, which software has the lowest barrier to entry for instructors?

Zoom is very accessible. Rise360 is another option. Articulate Storyline requires more time. When teaching on Zoom, you can log in on your iPad and use Notability to doodle or draw on your slides. Our neurology department teaches quality improvement using RedCap. It’s like an educational “choose your own adventure” where if you get a question wrong, it directs you to read a paper or watch a video.

How can we make virtual lectures more hands-on and participatory?

Zoom has underutilized features. You can have breakout rooms with faculty as moderators. For Journal Club, you can assign the interns to discuss the methods for a paper, the senior residents can talk about the results, then you designate a speaker to share on behalf of each group and rejoin the main room and teach one other. You can poll your audience directly without third-party software. Also, Zoom doesn’t have to be stationary! I could go to the ED with a mobile camera. You could have a suturing workshop with different faculty demonstrating on pigs’ feet in different rooms. The possibilities are only limited by your own imagination.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. del Vecchio is an emergency medicine resident physician at Mayo Clinic, with a passion for education innovation. A professional actor, he created an acting-based course to improve the communication and interpersonal skills of healthcare professionals. He can be reached on Twitter @TheActorDoctor and at delvecchio.alexis@mayo.edu.