The ACGME recently rolled out an update to its Faculty Development Toolkit: Improving Assessment Using Direct Observation, a comprehensive, evidence-based resource designed to help educators strengthen skills in practical, meaningful ways. The toolkit, available through the ACGME’s digital learning platform, Learn at ACGME (a free account is required to access the toolkit), includes a robust video library featuring expert-designed video prompts focused on a range of skills, including giving feedback to a learner. It also includes materials that reinforce and build on the ACGME’s longstanding and popular faculty development program, Developing Faculty Competencies in Assessment: A Course to Help Achieve the Goals of Competency-Based Medical Education.
The resources in this toolkit are intentionally and thoughtfully designed to support faculty members in leading workshops, enhancing teaching practices, and improving how learners are assessed through direct observation. One new aspect in this latest update is continuing medical education (CME) credits for “microlearnings,” or mini-modules, which will continue to be highlighted in the weekly e-Communication and on social media. This post will share more about these resources, what they are, and how they’re intended to be used.
Flexible Practical Learning
The toolkit, which can be used as a standalone training or integrated into existing faculty development programs, includes:
- 60 video prompts in a growing library
- 14 microlearning modules on key topics
- supporting materials and handouts, including frameworks and rater forms
- smart search filters to quickly find content with tags for topics and skills
- mobile optimized to access course materials on any device
- the opportunity to earn up to 9.75 CME credits
Microlearning Modules
At the core of the toolkit are a series of lessons called microlearnings—short, focused modules designed to support faculty members in building practical skills they can apply immediately in clinical education settings.
Each microlearning offers the opportunity to earn CME credit, with individual modules ranging from 0.25 to 1 credit. The toolkit provides flexible faculty development curricula that can be adapted to local needs, while equipping educators with techniques to strengthen observation, assessment, and feedback.
The microlearnings cover key aspects of direct observation, assessment, and feedback. These lessons are:
- Rationale for Workplace-Based Assessment Highlights the importance of direct observation, patient-centered communication, and the impact of assumptions about abilities, providing the foundation that leads to deliberate practice and mastery learning. Earn up to 0.5 CME credits.
- Barriers to Direct Observation
Guides participants through reflection to identify and more deeply understand real-world challenges to high-quality assessment. Earn up to 0.25 CME credits. - Understanding Issues of Reliability and Validity
Uses high-quality video vignettes to demonstrate the causes of low inter-rater reliability in workplace-based assessment through experiential learning. Earn up to 0.75 CME credits. - Performance Dimension Training
Highlights how performance dimension training creates a shared mental model for direct observation. Earn up to 0.75 CME credits. - Creating a Summary Statement
Demonstrates how to synthesize observations into meaningful ratings or judgments of learner performance. Earn up to 0.25 CME credits. - Frame of Reference Training
Focuses on improving consistency in assessment using criterion-referenced entrustment scales. Earn up to 1 CME credit. - Behavioral Observation Training
Reviews strategies for maximizing direct observation while minimizing observer interference. Earn up to 0.25 CME credits. - Observation Snapshots
Highlights how to identify and use small, meaningful moments for direct observation. Earn up to 0.5 CME credits. - Getting Buy-In from Faculty and Learners
Examines strategies to make direct observation valuable and worthwhile for both learners and faculty members. Earn up to 0.5 CME credits. - Practice Workshop
Provides opportunities to observe and synthesize observations into a judgment of ability by using high-quality video vignettes and expert answer keys. Earn up to 0.5 CME credits. - Providing Effective Feedback (Parts 1 and 2)
Part 1: Strategies for delivering feedback that learners can hear and act on.
Part 2: Frameworks for learner-centered feedback conversations.
Earn up to 0.5 CME credits (Part 1) and 0.25 CME credits (Part 2). - Approaches to Challenging Feedback
Highlights strategies for delivering feedback in difficult or complex situations. Earn up to 1 CME credit.
More Faculty Development Resources
The updated Faculty Development Toolkit is part of a broader suite of ACGME resources to support assessment in graduate medical education (GME), including:
- The Direct Observation of Clinical Care (DOCC) app, which assists faculty members and other evaluators in completing on-the-spot or scheduled direct observation assessments of residents and fellows caring for patients and performing other clinical activities. The DOCC app is designed as an open access tool freely available to Sponsoring Institutions and programs to implement on premises, either on a local server or using a hosting service. Data entered into the app can be exported by programs at any time. For questions regarding implementation, including importing data from the DOCC into a residency management system, learn@acgme.org
- The Developing Faculty Competencies in Assessment Course, a 6-day course that is run a few times per year, in person at the ACGME office in Chicago. The Faculty Development Hub Program offers focused courses at various locations in the US and abroad, some in person and some conducted remotely online.
- The Teamwork Effectiveness Assessment Module (TEAM) tool, a web-based tool for multisource feedback. Visit Learn at ACGME for instructions on registering for TEAM.
- The Milestones Resources web page on the ACGME website, with several guidebooks and other reference materials to assist with a range of assessment implementation situations.
- Additional assessment training tools for GME educators available in Learn at ACGME. Note: A free Learn at ACGME account is required to access most content on the platform.
The Faculty Development Toolkit offers a flexible, practical, and evidence-based approach to strengthening direct observation, assessment, and feedback in GME. With its now-expanded library of video prompts, introduction of CME for microlearning modules, and integration with other ACGME resources, the toolkit is designed to meet faculty members where they are in supporting both individual learning and program-level development.