Resident Self-Reflection & Assessment Form

Resident Name: Marisa Sochacki

Teaching Session Title: Summative


What is your overall impression of your teaching qualifications and progress this year?
Overall, I think that I have grown and developed significantly as an educator and a practitioner over the
last year. The teaching certificate program provided classroom instruction on teaching philosophy, but
also provided an avenue to actively practice what was taught in the classroom. Although I completed a
teaching program during my PGY1, I feel that this program allowed me to continue to mature as an
educator, gaining more confidence and experience. Because I was out of the country on global health
rotations, I did miss some of the lectures, which I believe would have been beneficial to attend. For
example, I missed the lecture on writing test questions.
I have been able to modify and fine-tune my teaching philosophy. Before this year, it was based mostly
on techniques that I admired in mentors and strategies through which I learned best. Ive been able to
modify it to include techniques and strategies that I find most effective in teaching, citing examples.
Because I believe in what Ive written, I feel that it is more powerful than it was previously. Additionally,
Ive been able to expand my teaching portfolio to include more teaching experiences, examples, and
reflections. I will continue to update and modify both my philosophy and my portfolio as I gain more
experience and continue to mature as a practitioner.
In regards to curriculum development, I am comfortable assembling both large group lectures and small
group sessions. I developed one large group lecture completely on my own. It was more time consuming
than I expected and I have gained an appreciation for this. I also have gained an appreciation for
incorporating both evidence from the literature and practical clinical experience. I am very pleased with
how the lecture went and my ability to incorporate a variety of active learning strategies. I plan to
continue to make sure to dedicate significant time to preparing for lectures in order to provide the best
content and learning environment. I also developed a small group discussion lecture which included
compiling objectives and required readings. I am proud of my ability to develop objectives that rely on
higher levels of thinking. The small group discussion preparation was different from the large group
lecture preparation. It was something new to me that I struggled with initially, but I do feel comfortable
with it now. I have developed a plan to incorporate more thought stimulating questions. I have also been
responsible for developing/modifying an APPE rotation for students. I revamped a syllabus and learning
objectives. I also made a schedule for the students with required assignments. The parts of curriculum
development that I am not as comfortable with include writing test questions. I did not have the
opportunity to practice this. In an academic role, I will ask for feedback from faculty mentors when initially
starting to write test questions. I will also try to test higher levels of thinking. Overall, I think it will still be
helpful to have a faculty mentor for curriculum development to orient me to the institution and to make
sure I incorporate all the necessary aspects of a curriculum.
During the year, I have been exposed to a variety of different teaching settings including not only large
and small lectures as mentioned above, but also problem-based learning, simulation activities, and
standardized patient evaluations. Exposure to these settings has been one of the most beneficial aspects
of this year. Although, I did not develop the 2-part problem based learning session, the simulation
activities, or the standardized patient cases, I learned how to develop them and also how they run. I
believe that curriculums should move in the direction of incorporating more of these settings because I
believe that they help students apply what they learn in the classroom. Providing feedback to students on
the standardized patient sessions was also helpful and exposed me to an example of grading criteria for
these sessions. I believe that my experience with these types of settings is something I can incorporate
into a curriculum at other institutions. I still have significant room to grow, and would like to become more
proficient at development of these activities and development of evaluation tools.
Throughout the year, I also feel that I have developed some skills that are not specific for teaching, but
are necessary for teaching. I have become more confident in talking to patients, healthcare providers, and
students. I am more comfortable presenting in front of both large and small groups. Ive also made
progress with problem solving and delegation skills throughout the year. In terms of confidence, this is
something that I am still working on. Sometimes I feel that I am not enough of an expert to be teaching.
The more clinical experience I get the more I will feel qualified to educate. At this point, I can continue to
stay up to date on the literature and learn from every patient encounter and my mentors and preceptors.
When I do not know an answer, I am comfortable saying I dont know or instructing a student to find the
answer themselves.
Discuss your teaching strengths.
I think that my teaching strengths are precepting, designing objectives, and incorporating real world
experience into my lectures, discussions, etc.
I really enjoy precepting. I like working with students one-on-one and watching them grow. I try to model
what I expect, then watch them and provide feedback. I try to use every situation as a teaching point and
write down questions and assignments to follow-up with students. I use Socratic questioning and try to
stimulate students to think about things both using evidence and also practically. I try to provide feedback
on a daily basis. I hope to continue these strategies when precepting.
During both precepting experiences and lecture experiences I like to draw upon real world experience
and give students actual patient examples. As a student, I had a hard time seeing the real world
application to many of things we were learning in the classroom. I think this will continue to improve as I
get more real world experience.
Discuss aspects of teaching that you would like to improve upon.
There are a few areas of teaching where I believe I have significant room for improvement. One area is
teaching civility and stimulating classroom participation. I really tried to encourage participation, but I think
having prepared questions or requirements for participation might help as well. I also am not confident in
how I might handle a situation of students misbehaving in class. Fortunately during my teaching
experiences, I did not have professionalism issues or conduct issues.
I also think I have significant room to improve on developing methods for and assessing knowledge. I did
not have an opportunity to develop test questions this year. I also did not have a chance to grade
assignments or develop answer keys. I will seek help from mentors when doing this in the future. I will
strive to test students fairly on clinically significant information. I also am not confident in evaluating
students on rotation with me. I have a limited frame of reference on which to base assessments. I also
sometimes struggle with evaluating students, when I know I am still considered a learner as well. Having
systems such as E-Value and school of pharmacy protocols for rotations will help with this. I will develop
a system that relies not only on my feedback, but on feedback from all providers that the student has
come in contact with on rotation. I will continue to provide feedback on a constant basis so that formal
evaluations do not come as a shock to students. Similarly, I want to develop a system that always me to
be upfront with expectations of students. For classroom activities, I will put these expectations in the
syllabus. For rotations, I will put these expectations in the syllabus, but also address them as the student
progresses because his/her clinic responsibilities will change. I must always remember not to assume that
students know something. Sometimes I expect them to know things that they might not have a reason to
know.
What, if anything, would you do differently next time?
Overall, I am pleased with how the year went and the teaching experiences I have had. There are things
with each teaching session that I would change, but nothing major. I have learned a lot reflecting on the
sessions and working with my mentors. Overall, I think I would have liked to attend more of the Teach Me
to Teach You sessions, but scheduling constraints limited this. I would also have a road map for what I
wanted to accomplish for the year. This would allow me to understand and be more familiar with the
available teaching opportunities. I also believe it would have been beneficial to work with a wider array of
faculty members in order to see a variety of teaching styles. I worked most closely with my own
preceptors, whose style I am already familiar with. I learn best by observing others do what I will be
required to do and then performing it. To be able to combine teaching techniques from various faculty
members would help me develop a stronger philosophy and teaching style. I will continue to learn from
teaching mentors and attend sessions by other faculty. I also would have liked to attend faculty committee
meetings. Faculty positions require that a specific amount of time be dedicated to service. It would be
beneficial to be exposed to academic committees and issues facing faculty members.