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We had the opportunity to speak with Jordan Holmes, Senior Manager, Centre for Learning, Innovation, and Simulation. He is also a CFD Member and active contributor to the CFD within our Executive Committee. Jordan was instrumental in bringing the benefits of CFD membership to faculty at the Michener Institute of Education at UHN this year.
Q: You have been a vital part of the CFD community over the past several years, contributing to committees, communities of practice, and teaching workshops. What have appreciated the most about your connection to the CFD?
CFD has been instrumental in fostering my passion for health professions education scholarship. I can draw a straight line from the Stepping Stones program I completed as a faculty member over 10 years ago, to my master’s degree, and now to my ongoing PhD work at the Wilson Centre. CFD and the rich community of practice that members share is an unbelievable privilege to be a part of, both personally and professionally.
Q: This year, the Michener Institute came onboard as an Institutional Member. What motivated and drove that decision for your organization?
I lead the Centre for Learning, Innovation and Simulation at the Michener Institute. We are a relatively small team with expertise in instructional design, simulation, and e-learning. While we strive to develop the best faculty development opportunities we possibly can, having access to CFD’s catalog of offerings is an incredible opportunity for our faculty to be exposed to cutting edge ideas and best-practices in health professions education. My hope is that faculty from all the programs that we offer see themselves and their work reflected in the CFD community, and have the same opportunity that I had to contribute to the knowledge-sharing and growth of the community.
Q: What are some of the faculty development needs you have identified among your faculty at the Michener? How as the pandemic shifted the teaching and learning environment?
At Michener, we pride ourselves on the deep integration of simulation-based education and clinical rotations throughout our health professions programs – experiential learning is central to our identity and values. The pandemic has presented unique challenges to providing rich experiential learning opportunities. With limited in-person contact, we need to constantly prioritize and find the right balance of hands-on time, while thinking of ways to keep our learners engaged online. Faculty can feel disconnected from learners, and learners can feel disconnected from each-other and the development of their professional identity and community. This is one of the reasons why institutional membership with CFD makes so much sense for us – we now have access to scholars and leaders who are investigating the same phenomena. For example, we are exploring the theory and practice of conceptual integration, adaptive expertise, and test-enhanced learning, with the goal of providing our learners with as solid a substrate as possible for them to be prepared to excel in their simulations and clinical rotations. We are also learning more about how others in HPE are integrating equity, diversity, and inclusion into their curricular design, as we share the goal of making our health professions as representative as possible of the communities we serve.
Q: The Michener Institute of Education at UHN has been an innovator in our system for the applied health sciences. What is something very innovative that is happening at the Michener at we should all take note of?
We are very excited about our newest program, Digital Health and Data Analytics. This program came about from an identified health system need for a new profession that has expertise in integrating digital health, artificial intelligence, data analytics, machine learning, and virtual care. This is a fully remote program that leverages the best of online synchronous, asynchronous, and practicum placements. We believe that this will be the first of many programs that Michener will develop that responds to the changing landscape of the professions, what the sociologist Edgar Alan Burns refers to as the “unbundling” and “rebundling” of professional expertise. As our professions and curriculum adapt and change, our faculty development needs will follow suit – CFD is a significant part of how we plan on supporting that growth.
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