Stepping Stones

Stepping Stones Guiding Principles

Prioritize the delivery of content that is accessible to junior, early-career, participants with a focus on enhancing basic literacy in Health Professions Education (HPE).

Acknowledge and draw from the expertise of participants, resulting in meaningful incorporation of participants’ experiential knowledge along with workshop faculty expertise.

Facilitate alignment among Stepping Stones activities including workshops and journal clubs in contrast to delivering a workshop as a stand-alone educational session.

Generate opportunities for social connection with the view of nurturing a sense of community among Stepping Stones participants, and with the broader HPE community.

Empower self-discovery and identity development, encouraging participants to explore and solidify areas of strength and interest within HPE.

Role model curiosity and understanding about others’ perspectives and communicate understanding without judgment.

Build flexibility into your session curriculum allowing for adaptability of content and structure in relation to participants’ needs.

Model authenticity by developing sessions that are congruent with your interests and strengths as an educator in order to engage participants with candour and sincerity.

Where possible, identify/illuminate systemic challenges by making connections about how broader health (and HPE) systems issues relate to your session content, highlighting where there is need for change agency.

Role model healthy cross-boundary partnerships in HPE by prioritizing role diversity among the faculty delivering each workshop.

Develop content that is relevant and meaningful to a wide range of people with the view to communicate effectively to a multi-professional audience of learners.

Attend to questions of inequity and power disparities as they relate to your content area and in-class educational/learning processes.

Update and refine your session content routinely to reflect ongoing developments in HPE evidence and best practices in your topic area.

Build capacity for your own topic area by supporting the development of new generations of faculty developers (e.g., by partnering with more junior faculty during your session) for long-term sustainability.

Support the knowledge mobilization goals of faculty development by connecting information and resources from various platforms/sources/perspectives.