Search

Aim: To explore the core competencies needed on part of the medical and dental teachers to carry out effective digital teaching for their students. Methods: It was a qualitative study which employed phenomenological approach. The data were collected from 12 teachers who were purposively selected for semi-structured interviews. They were all expert digital teachers. The data were transcribed verbatim, coded and analyzed thematically. Textural and structural description of the themes helped to develop a new competency framework. Results: The data yielded 47 selective codes with 15 sub-themes and five themes. The emergent themes included general digital competencies, specific digital teaching competencies, mastery of the subject matter, mastery of pedagogical strategies and proficiency in using innovative digital technologies for teaching. The themes 1, 2 and 5 relate to digital competencies only whereas the themes 3 and 4 are generic competencies which apply to both digital and non-digital teaching. These generic competencies form the basis of all kinds of teaching, hence equally important for digital teaching. Conclusion: Medical teachers should possess diverse digital competencies. The competency framework that emerged in the current research encompasses the essential attributes that should be included in any future training program aiming at the digital capacity building of the teachers. This will keep them primed for effective digital teaching. Given its crucial importance, the digital teaching competency should be considered as a cross-cutting competency that applies to almost all of the famous eight roles of medical teacher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The digital teaching is quite different fromthe traditional in-person classroom teaching. The purpose of the thematic review was to identify the development and future prospects of digital teaching with reference to medical and dental teachers as well as to identify any published competency frameworks in this regard. Method: The authors conducted a thematic review of the relevant literature published between1994-2022. The databases searched included PubMed, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and Google Scholar. Manual search was also carried out so as not to miss any relevant published literature. Results: The initial search yielded 31,389 publications. At the search phase, the identification of publications was based on the titles of the publications. At the screening phase, 31,322 records were excluded because of their being irrelevant or duplicated. The remaining 67 articles were further screened by reading the abstracts. Out of these 67 publications, 24 were excluded because of being non-relevant. At the appraisal phase, 43 publications were assessed for eligibility. At final synthesis phase of the literature review, 26 publications were included. Conclusion: The available published literature on digital teaching was focused predominantly on primary and secondary school students. The digital competency frameworks were designed for the transfer of the knowledge component and dealt mostly with children. These frameworks did not meet the specific requirements of medical teachers. The latter have to transfer not only the knowledge domain, but also teach clinical skills and professional attitudes to their adult learners. Hence, they need a framework which should provide for these added competencies and real-life, patient-oriented clinical scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]