Twelve tips for implementing a community of practice for faculty development

Abstract

Teaching and learning practices often fail to incorporate new concepts in the ever-evolving field of medical education. Although medical education research provides new insights into curricular development, learners’ engagement, assessment methods, professional development, interprofessional education, and so forth, faculty members often struggle to modernize their teaching practices. Communities of practice (CoP) for faculty development offer an effective and sustainable approach for knowledge management and implementation of best practices. A successful CoP creates and shares knowledge in the context of a specific practice toward the development of expertise. CoPs’ collaborative nature, based on the co-creation of practical solutions to daily problems, aligns well with the goals of applying best practices in health professions education and training new faculty members. In our article, we share 12 tips for implementing a community of practice for faculty development. The tips were based on a comprehensive literature review and the authors’ experiences.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico [202319/2017-2] and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo [2016/11908-1].

Notes on contributors

Marco Antonio de Carvalho-Filho

Marco Carvalho Filho, MD, PhD, is a clinical teacher and faculty developer at the University of Campinas and University Medical Center in Groningen. He is actively involved in training new faculty members in his own community of practice and developing innovative approaches for emergency medicine training.

René A. Tio

René Tio, MD, PhD, is a clinical cardiologist involved in medical education. He is past chairman of the Dutch progress test working group as well as past chairman of the board of examiners and past director of the faculty development program at the University Medical Center in Groningen the Netherlands.

Yvonne Steinert

Yvonne Steinert, PhD, is Professor of Family Medicine, Director of the Center for Medical Education, and Richard and Sylvia Cruess Chair in Medical Education in the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University. She is also former Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Past President of the Canadian Association for Medical Education.