Synchronous learning for synchronous teaching: lessons learned from creating an online seminar to help physician educators develop best practices for synchronous online instruction

Abstract

During the COVID-19 emergency in March 2020, most medical education activities were severely interrupted in teaching hospitals globally. At our institution, a large, urban teaching hospital in the United States, many physicians used video-conferencing tools to maintain educational activities with residents and fellows during the crisis. Therefore, graduate medical education instructional designers created a "pop-up" support seminar to outline and model best practices in conducting synchronous learning for physician educators. A total of 64 physicians attended two sessions of the seminar titled "Instructional Design: Best Practices in Synchronous Learning." While the seminar was designed to provide physicians with sound pedagogical tools, it was also designed to be delivered in a synchronous format to model best practices for this teaching modality. This Practical Tips article aims to be a working template for medical educators who would like to create a support course for physician educators in how to implement a high impact synchronous learning event. We share design challenges for creating online synchronous events, outline the specifics of our course, and highlight key behaviors and activities that facilitators can take to improve their online teaching.