Fostering Reflection and Providing Feedback: Helping Others Learn from Experience(Springer Series on Medical Education)

There are two key ways that educators can help students derive as much as possible from their daily experiences in classrooms and patient care settings: by helping them become routinely reflective and by providing them with timely, constructive feedback. This practical book is devoted to helping educators enhance their skills in these two related areas. The authors provide the rationale for and carefully explain steps to take when fostering reflection and providing feedback. Using real-world examples they guide readers who want to help their students become reflective practitioners who are life-long learners. The layout of the book and the checklists make it easy for busy educators to read appropriate sections when needed and to return for targeted reviews as they progressively enhance their skills in these vital areas. Although the examples are drawn primarily from the health professions, educators in other professions should also find this a useful resource.

Table of Contents:
Why foster reflection?; why is constructive feedback so important?; why reflection and feedback are avoided or done poorly; preparing yourself and your learners; fostering reflection; providing feedback effectively; helping learners reflect with and give feedback to each other; helping learners elicit feedback from patients.

About the Author :

Hilliard ""Hill"" Jason, MD, EdD, is the first person known to have pursued both medical and education doctorates. After completing his residency and Certificate in Psychiatry at Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester and the Alan Memorial Institute, McGill University, he has devoted his career to finding ways to help enhance and humanize the teaching and communication processes in the health professions. He is currently Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Faculty Associate in the Ethics and Humanities Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is also Editor of the journal, Education for Health, and Co-Director of the Center for Instructional Support in Boulder, Colorado.

Dr. Jason has been on the faculties of the University of Rochester School of Medicine (1963-66), Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine (where he was Professor and founding Director of the Office of Medical Education Research and Development, 1966-72), the George Washington University School of Medicine (Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, 1972-78), and the University of Miami School of Medicine (1978-90), where he was Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the National Center for Faculty Development. Hill was also Scholar in Residence at the National Library of Medicine (1972-74), and founding Director of the Division of Faculty Development at the Association of American Medical Colleges (1974-78).

He has consulted with, and done workshops for, most of the medical schools in the U.S. and Canada, and with health professions organizations in 27 other countries. He had been host of more than 60 nationally distributed educational television programs and anchored five multi-day, multi-national live educational teleconference. He and his wife, Jane Westberg, Ph.D., have co-authored 6 academic books, more than 40 nationally distributed educational television programs and many articles and editorials. Together, they have offered hundreds of faculty development workshops for thousands of teachers in the health professions. Hill initiated and devised the major study of clinical reasoning that was reported in the book, Medical Problem Solving (Elstein AS, Shulman LS, & Spraftka SA., 1978). He also devised and ran the largest study known to have been conducted of medical teachers, reported in the book, Teachers and Teaching in U.S. Medical Schools (Jason H & Westberg J, 1982). He is co-author (with Jane Westberg) of: Making Presentations (1991); Providing Constructive Feedback (1991); Teaching Creatively with Video: Fostering Reflection, Communication and Other Clinical Skills (1994); and Fostering Learning in Small Groups: A Practical Guide (1996). The last 3 of these books are part of the Springer Publishing Company's Series on Medical Education, and the last two are also part of their Series on Nursing Education.

Jane Westberg, PhD, is Clinical Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Faculty Associate in the Ethics and Humanities Program at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She is also Associate Editor of Education for Health and Co-Director of the Center for Instructional Support in Boulder, Colorado. Previously, she served on the faculties of the University of Miami School of Medicine (where she was Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Associate Director of the National Center for Faculty Development) and George Washington University School of Medicine.

Dr. Westberg has consulted with, and designed and facilitated workshops for, thousands of health professions educators in a wide range of areas, particularly teaching, learning and communication in education and health care. She has written numerous articles, chapters, and instructional materials for health professionals and is senior author (coauthor Hilliard Jason) of the CIS GuideBooks: Providing Constructive Feedback (1991) and Making Presentations (1991), and of the Springer Publishing Company books: Collaborative Clinical Education: The Foundation of Effective Health Care (1993), Teaching Creatively with Video: Fostering Reflection, Communication and Other Clinical Skills (1994), and Fostering Learning in Small Groups: A Practical Guide (1996), all with Hilliard Jason. She is co-author, also with Jason, of Teachers and Teaching in U.S. Medical Schools and lead writer and producer-director of more than 40 educational video programs and an audiotape program and set of manuals entitled, Spanish in Health Care, which is designed to help students and professionals learn the Spanish needed for interacting with Spanish-speaking patients.