College of MedicineCollege of MedicineAboutDepartments & UnitsCIPHERSEducation Scholars Program

CIPHERS Education Scholars Program 2024–2025

Course Director: Dawn DeWitt, MD, MSc, MACP, FRACP, FRCP-London
Professor & Senior Associate Dean, CIPHERS Director, WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Course Assistant Director: Julie Larsen, PhD, ACSM-CEP, RDN
Associate Professor, Dept. of Nutrition & Exercise Physiology, WSU Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Program Administrators: Jennifer Anderson and Donna Prieto
Commitment: Synchronous: 3.5 Hours/session x 9 sessions, 2-3 hours preparation for and reflection about each session | October 2024 – May 2025

Program Content
Program Logistics & Eligibility
Application Process & Selection

Overview 

The Education Scholars Program (ESP) is a longitudinal faculty development program for WSU health professions faculty and those with affiliate appointments who endeavor to deepen their understanding of learning theory as it informs practice and apply these concepts to developing skills in education scholarship. ESP 2024-25 will engage ~10 faculty scholars from the WSU colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Residency Programs, and other professions in nine monthly 3.5-hour sessions over the academic year. The instructional format is flexible to accommodate a hybrid of in-person and virtual participation.

Designed as a longitudinal “community of practice,” enrolled scholars will work together to consider how theories of learning inform educational practices and a broad definition of scholarship. Sessions will cover various theoretical frameworks as they apply to principles of and methodology for education scholarship and practice. Applications from faculty across the WSU health sciences colleges and campus locations are welcome.

The application deadline is Monday, July 15, 2024. Questions about the program can be directed to: medicine.ciphers@wsu.edu

Distinctive Features

  • ESP develops promising teachers with career paths dedicated to research, scholarship, and leadership in health professions education. 
  • ESP fosters participation in a community of practice that supports longitudinal learning for each scholar. 
  • ESP will focus on using theories of learning to inform educational practices. Participants will develop creative and adaptive problem-solving skills and scholarly activities that are applicable in their teaching situations. 

Instructional Approach

Classroom activities provide the foundation for applying educational concepts and teaching strategies in the classroom and clinical workplace and reflection-on-practice solidifies learning and promotes personal growth. 

Program Content 

  • Module 1: Teacher Identity Formation | Thursday, October 17, 2024 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This session orients scholars to the program, with a focus on building a community of practice. Scholars will explore Pratt’s Five Teaching Perspectives and the concept of identity formation as teachers and scholars.
  • Module 2: Competency-based Education | Thursday, November 14, 2024 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This session begins with a discussion of the evidence for time-based versus competency-based education. Scholars will explore educational frameworks (competencies, milestones) and assessment approaches including entrustable professional activities.
  • Module 3: Scholarship and Research | Thursday, December 12, 2024 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This module introduces scholars to frameworks for educational research and scholarship, including approaches to: reading medical education literature and becoming a reviewer, engaging in distributed discourse, and assisting scholars with creating a learning plan.
  • Module 4: Feedback for Learning | Thursday, January 9, 2025 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This module will explore feedback frameworks including the educational alliance, feedback delivery, and receptivity to feedback with the goal of broadening and deepening scholars’ strategies for this challenging topic.
  • Module 5: Curriculum | Thursday, February 6, 2025 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This module will explore curriculum development for classrooms and planned instruction. Using Fink’s model and backwards design, scholars will distinguish teaching objectives from desired learning outcomes, align assessment strategies with learning outcomes, and consider instructional strategies to support desired learning. We will also explore spaced and interleaved practices.
  • Module 6: Scholarship Primer | Thursday, March 6, 2025 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This module will explore issues and tools that will support your scholarship journey.
  • Module 7: Clinical Reasoning | Thursday, April 10, 2025 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This module will review theories and apply curriculum concepts to diagnostic reasoning. Following a developmental approach that supports the development of habits of critical thinking, scholars will discuss problem representations, illness scripts, hypothesis-driven inquiry, clinical reasoning discourse, a framework for diagnosing learners’ reasoning, and strategies for feedback to improve diagnostic reasoning.
  • Module 8: Social Learning | Thursday, May 1, 2025 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This module will contrast cognitive frameworks with social learning frameworks, exploring new theoretical developments in social learning, the importance of context and learning environment, group learning, and the role of personal histories and stereotype threat. Scholars will consider how to improve efforts to support students/trainees through these lenses.
  • Module 9: Expertise | Thursday, May 29, 2025 | 8:30 am – Noon
    This module will explore the concept of expert and expertise, considering developmental frameworks (novice to expert), deliberate practice, routine versus expert practice, and mastery learning.

Program Logistics

The ESP is hosted monthly on Thursdays from 8:30 am to Noon (3.5 hours) in a hybrid format to accommodate in-person and virtual attendance.

Matriculated scholars should also anticipate 1–2 hours of preparation prior to each session and 1–2 hours of application of learning between sessions.

Eligibility

  • Open to all WSU health professions faculty OR healthcare professionals with a WSU faculty appointment.
    • We particularly welcome faculty who teach our students in clinical settings and residency-affiliated faculty (all participants must have a WSU faculty appointment to access ESP resources; this is usually provided through your local clinical campus if you work with WSU students or residents).
  • Individuals with teaching responsibilities who anticipate career paths dedicated to teaching, scholarship, and leadership in health professions education are encouraged to apply.
  • Applicants from all WSU campus locations are welcome to participate, as well as those who have a WSU faculty appointment through their respective clinical site.

Application Process

Please submit the following materials to medicine.ciphers@wsu.edu no later than Monday, July 15, 2024:

  • Current CV
  • Letter of interest outlining:
    • Current teaching responsibilities and activities (classroom and/or workplace, clinical or laboratory)
    • Areas of interest in teaching or educational leadership or education scholarship, career goals in the next 3–5 years
    • How this program will help the candidate attain these goals
      NOTE: Candidates must have regular teaching responsibilities to apply newly learned concepts and strategies.
  • A brief letter/email of support from the candidate’s direct supervisor highlighting the candidate’s potential for contributing to the WSU health sciences community of educators, including how this candidate’s contributions will support learning of others in the selected cohort.

Application Deadline: Monday, July 15, 2024.

Selection

The CIPHERS Director will facilitate application review with an interprofessional selection committee. A maximum of 10 scholars will be selected.

Scholars will be notified of acceptance no later than Monday, July 29, 2024.

First ESP session: Thursday, October 17, 2024

Questions?

Contact

Dr. DeWitt has held medical education leadership roles for over 25 years in three countries. After obtaining her MD at Harvard Medical School, she completed Internal Medicine training, a Chief Residency, and a Certificate in Medical Education at the University of Washington. During her 10 years on faculty at the UW WWAMI program, she led innovations in curriculum, distance education, and rural faculty development and was named one of the “Best Doctors in America” by her peers. Dr. DeWitt is a Master in the American College of Physicians, a national Wellness Champion, and co-author of the best-selling book “Teaching in Your Office.” While at the Melbourne Medical School, her team developed Australia’s first purpose-built interprofessional teaching clinic and was awarded both the Medical School and University Program Innovation in Education Awards. At the University of British Columbia, she provided strategic leadership for the MD Program and curriculum renewal. Transitioning to WSU COM in 2016, she served as the inaugural Vice Dean for Student and Faculty Experience, the Inaugural Associate Dean for Clinical Education (Spokane Campus), and the Inaugural Director for Year 4. She is spearheading development of CIPHERS (Collaboration for InterProfessional Health Education Research & Scholarship) and is PI a $2M HRSA grant for IP education.

Dr. DeWitt has focused her clinical work on under-served patients and volunteers at a clinic for the homeless. Her work in diabetes includes a systematic review of insulin (JAMA) and an Australian National Health Medical Research Council grant for diabetes treatment in collaboration with Indigenous Australians. She publishes on issues in medical education, rural workforce, health disparities, and career choice. She loves skijoring with her Australian labradoodle, Higgins, and singing with the Spokane Symphony Chorale.

Contact

Dr. Julie Larsen is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Nutrition and Exercise Physiology (NEP) Department within the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine at Washington State University’s Health Sciences campus. She has taught most of the undergraduate NEP courses at one time and currently teaches Strength Training and Conditioning, Nutrition Assessment and Lifestyle Counseling, Exercise Testing and Prescription, Human Health Behavior and Behavioral Interventions, Nutrition and Exercise Practicum I and II, and Nutrition and Exercise Capstone. She is also the BS NEP Program Director and oversees all BS NEP internships.
Dr. Larsen is credentialed as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and a Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist. She also volunteers as a Health Promotion Clinical Director with Special Olympics Washington, President-Elect of the Washington State Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and Membership Chair for the Greater Spokane Dietetics Association.