Education scholarship is a dynamic field involving research, training, and innovation in health professions education and includes any material, product, or resource created with the primary aim of serving an educational purpose.
Educational scholarship improves educational practices, contributes to the development of effective teaching methods, enhances the education of healthcare professionals, and as a result enhances patient care and outcomes.
Boyer’s domains of education scholarship include:
- Scholarship of Discovery: Build new knowledge through traditional peer-reviewed research
- Scholarship of Integration: Interpret knowledge produced by original research, make connections across disciplines, and synthesize the knowledge in a broader context
- Scholarship of Application: Apply theory to practice and service to the needs of the community
- Scholarship of Teaching: Communicate knowledge to others while transforming and extending teaching practices to achieve optimal learning
Boyer E.L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. A special report, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 1990.
- Research and Inquiry: Exploration of educational practices, theories, and policies in healthcare education (e.g., teaching methods, curriculum design, assessment strategies, and the effects of educational interventions).
- Innovation and Improvement: Investigation of how education scholarship drives innovation and improvement in the theory and practice of teaching, curriculum design, educational technology and program development and evaluation. This includes considering the integration of new technologies, evidence-based practices and inter-professional education.
- Assessment and Evaluation: Emphasis on valid and reliable assessment tools (e.g., to measure the competence of healthcare learners). This may involve developing new assessment methods, evaluating existing ones and exploring innovative ways to assess clinical skills and knowledge.
- Faculty Development: Enhancement of the skills and knowledge of health professions educators. This includes providing faculty training in areas such as effective teaching methods, assessment practices, educational leadership, and inter-professional education.
- Dissemination of Best Practices: Contribution to the dissemination of educational best practices and evidence-based approaches. This can involve publishing research findings, participating in conferences, and collaborating with colleagues to share knowledge and experiences.
- Enhancing Patient Care Through Best Practices: By keeping up with the latest education advancements and education scholarship, healthcare professionals are better equipped to provide high-quality patient care.
- Strengthening Capacity Building and Impact: Education scholarship can extend beyond the organization’s walls, positively impacting the local community and patients and leading to a more educated and skilled workforce.
- Building a Learning Culture and Community: Education scholarship fosters a culture of continuous learning within an organization and can lead to a more innovative and forward-thinking healthcare environment.
- Establishing a Community of Practice: Education scholarship can foster capacity building by facilitating the exchange of ideas and best practices in health professions education (e.g., via conferences, events, and workshops).
- Promoting a ‘Test and Learn’ Mindset: By fostering a ‘test and learn’ mindset in education scholarship, institutions can create environments that support innovation, evidence-based practices, and the continuous improvement of teaching and learning.
$100,000 Karen Green Courage Award
On November 29, 2023, Women’s College Hospital, in partnership with Women’s College Hospital Foundation, hosted the first inaugural Breakthrough Challenge, where three teams pitched their research, education and quality improvement ideas to panelists and donors in a bid to win funding for their projects.
Dr. Dana Ross secured the top spot, earning the Karen Green Courage Award and $100,000 for her education scholarship project “Transforming Healthcare Through Trauma-Informed Care Education.” Backed by her fellow mental health team, she will develop, deliver, and evaluate an online, self-paced course covering universal principles and skills for delivering trauma-informed care.
Read more about the event here:
$25,000 Ontario SPOR SUPPORT EMPOWER VII Project Grant
Ambreen Sayani’s proposal “Creating Safe Connections in Francophone Official Language Minority Communities” aims to improve equity at the point-of-access to lung cancer screening. It was selected for funding to co-develop a culturally relevant French language version of their e-learning module.
The team will develop a comprehensive plan to translate existing web-based materials into French and pilot the curriculum to ensure it maintains instructional effectiveness and is linguistically accurate and culturally suitable for French-speaking learners.
You can read more about Ambreen’s exciting work here:
Education Scholarship Consultations
Are you interested in education scholarship but don’t know where to begin? The Academics Program is here to support you. Education Scholarship Consultations are the perfect place to start!
Arrange an informal one-on-one virtual or in-person chat with our education scholarship lead, Dr. Joyce Nyhof-Young. Arrange an appointment if you:
- Have an idea that you want to run by someone
- Are struggling with a current education project or publication
- Are working towards a grant or implementing a new scholarship project
Contact: Joyce.Nyhof-Young@wchospital.ca
MD Student Conference Bursary
The Academic program at Women’s College Hospital (WCH) is pleased to announce a new medical student travel bursary to promote education scholarship among early career medical trainees.
Through a generous donation, the Academic program offers this bursary to support University of Toronto medical students from all Academies who were supervised by a WCH supervisor and who presented their education research or scholarship at an academic conference (e.g. medical, healthcare, education).
Up to $1,500 will be awarded among successful applicants (i.e., a total of $1,500 annually) to help cover costs such as travel, accommodation, conference registration, and posters. Successful applicants will be notified via e-mail and be recognized at the annual Women’s College Hospital Day of Excellence Ceremony in the spring.
The bursary submission deadline is Friday March 29, 2024.
Position Paper on Education Scholarship: ‘Toward a Common Understanding’
In 2012, in recognition of the growing need for faculty members to focus on education scholarship as part of their academic commitment, the Canadian Association for Medication Education created a position paper on the scholarship of education in Canada. It remains topical today.
The publication aims “to ensure that the amount of time and work that CAME members and other clinical faculty often dedicate to the development of educational programs and strategies is appropriately recognized as legitimate academic work.”
Learn more here.
Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education (CACHE)
CACHE provides a wide range of interprofessional information and resources in education scholarship. Their informative magazine provides many stories of collective impact. Learn more here.
The Office of Education Scholarship (OES), Department of Family and Community Medicine
The OES website is full of excellent links, tools, grant opportunities and resources to support your education scholarship journey.
The Institute for Education Research (TIER)
TIER is working to close the gap between education, research and clinical practice by providing opportunities to bring professionals together to share ideas, connect, and collaborate. Visit their website here.