OBJECTIVE: Chalk talks are a subtype of bite-sized teaching with potential benefits over conventional teaching methods, including their use of visuals, adaptability, and potential to be more engaging. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an orientation curriculum for medical students during the psychiatry clerkship based on bite-sized teaching and chalk talks.
METHODS: A series of brief (10 min) lectures were developed covering fundamental skills in psychiatry, including psychiatric interview, mental status exam, and differential diagnosis. Talks were presented to medical students by the study author on the first day of their psychiatry clerkship in 60-min group educational sessions with 10-15 students per group. Data was gathered in pre- and post-session surveys that measured response to 4 knowledge-based questions on mental status exam terminology, 3 questions assessing confidence in completing skills associated with the talks, and 3 questions assessing beliefs regarding these skills.
RESULTS: Fifty-six medical students participated in the educational sessions and completed pre- and post-session surveys. Students showed significant improvement from pre- to post-session in answering knowledge questions and perceived confidence in all skills, and indicated significant change in their beliefs regarding these topics.
CONCLUSIONS: Although this is a small study without a control group, the results provide initial evidence that approaches to teaching foundational psychiatry topics based on bite-sized teaching and chalk talks may be an acceptable and more time-efficient alternative to a traditional lecture-based curriculum, and can produce significant changes in knowledge and attitudes.

UNASSIGNED: There is increasing recognition that incoming interns benefit from formal training in teaching skills during UME. Many medical schools have capstone courses well suited for teacher-training content. Mini chalk talks (MCTs) are a common clinical teaching modality requiring a variety of teaching skills. We developed a session for our institution\'s capstone course in which students prepared and delivered MCTs.
UNASSIGNED: The voluntary flipped classroom session was offered virtually in 2021 and in person in 2022. Before the session, students reviewed materials on creating effective MCTs and developed and practiced their own MCT. During the 90-minute session, students presented their MCT to a group of students in the same or similar future specialties and received feedback from their peers and a facilitator.
UNASSIGNED: Twenty-six percent of graduating students (95 of 370) in 16 specialties participated. Students had a statistically significant increase in confidence delivering effective MCTs (p < .01). On a 5-point Likert scale (1 = did not learn, 5 = a great amount), students\' mean ratings of clinical knowledge and teaching skills gained from the session were 4.4 and 4.5, respectively. Qualitative feedback highlighted the benefits of receiving feedback on teaching (31 of 77 respondents, 40%), practicing teaching skills (21 of 77, 27%), and experiencing other students\' MCTs (13 of 77, 17%).
UNASSIGNED: Our MCT session provides a versatile, resource-efficient method of supporting students in transitioning to the role of resident educators. It also offers them an opportunity to receive valuable feedback on their teaching in a low-stakes environment.

Chalk talks are a ubiquitous teaching strategy in both pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine and medicine in general; yet, trainees and early career faculty are rarely taught how to design, prepare, and present a chalk talk. Skills necessary to deliver a chalk talk are transferable to other settings, such as the bedside, wards during rounds, and virtual classrooms. As a teaching strategy, the chalk talk can involve learners at multiple levels, foster practical knowledge, stimulate self-assessment, encourage the generation of broad differential diagnoses, and promote an interactive learning environment. Suited for both formal and informal learning, the chalk talk can be prepared well in advance or, after some practice, can be presented \"on the fly.\" Furthermore, often on the wards or in the intensive care unit, team members are asked to \"teach the rest of the team\" at some point during rounds. There is little guidance in medical education for students and trainees to prepare for how to do this, and the chalk talk can serve as an excellent format and teaching strategy to \"teach the team\" when tasked to do so. To highlight our perspectives on best practices in using the chalk talk format effectively, we first briefly review the literature surrounding this very common yet understudied teaching strategy. We then provide a primer on how to design, develop, and deliver a chalk talk as a resource for how we teach residents, fellows, and early career attendings to deliver their own chalk talks.

Acute pain is one of the most common complaints that presents to the emergency department. Despite its ubiquity, oligoanalgesia, or the undertreatment of pain, remains a problem in medicine, possibly due to minimal dedicated pain teaching for senior medical students transitioning to residency.
We designed a 2.5-hour interactive seminar for senior medical students transitioning into residency. The seminar included a chalk talk and case-based discussion, reviewed pain physiology, revisited pain assessment, and introduced pain management strategies using a novel acute pain plan to organize an analgesic approach from presentation through disposition from the emergency department. The didactic chalk talk was interwoven with a case of acute pain. Seminar materials promoted a near-peer teaching opportunity for future facilitators. Learners completed open-ended pre-/postsession knowledge assessments.
Data were obtained from 19 fourth-year medical students enrolled in three iterations of a preinternship course at Harvard Medical School. Prior to the seminar, learners scored an average of 23.0 out of 53.0 points (SD = 9.0) on the knowledge assessment, which improved to 36.6 out of 53.0 points (SD = 6.7) following the seminar (paired t test p < .001). Learner satisfaction data revealed a positive response to the seminar: Learners felt more confident managing pain and highly recommended the seminar\'s continuation in the future.
Initial data from this seminar suggest a need for and benefit of targeted pain education for senior medical students. Seminar materials can easily be adapted for learners in other departments or in early graduate medical education.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted a continued need for innovative virtual teaching methods. Chalk talks, or brief illustrated interactive talks, are easily made virtual with an online whiteboard. We evaluated the efficacy of a live virtual chalk talk curriculum for medical students on their dermatology clerkship. A curriculum of one to three 1-h chalk talks was designed on the following topics: papulosquamous diseases, erythroderma, and immunobullous diseases. Talks were delivered monthly via Zoom to dermatology clerkship students. Pre- and post-talk surveys were administered to assess knowledge, confidence, and satisfaction. Compared with pre-talk, students (n = 18) achieved a greater percentage of possible points on knowledge assessment questions after the talks (41.0 ± 27.7% versus 90.4 ± 18.4%, p < 0.001). As assessed on a Likert scale (1 = not at all confident, 5 = extremely confident), students became more confident in differentiating conditions within each disease group and working up the conditions (2.02 ± 0.53 versus 3.53 ± 0.55, p < 0.001, and 2.09 ± 0.44 versus 3.76 ± 0.89, p < 0.001, respectively). Qualitative responses showed that students appreciated the student-teacher interactions. In conclusion, we found that live chalk talks are an effective and engaging way to teach dermatology to medical students in the virtual setting.
UNASSIGNED: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-023-01781-4.

This article discusses the chalk talk\'s potential as an active learning method. Although chalk talks are a form of interactive lecture, they have received little attention in the medical education literature compared with other active learning methods such as team-based learning and simulation. One of the authors (C. K. L. Phoon) has used chalk talks to teach congenital heart defects to first- and third-year NYU medical students for many years. His chalk talks have consistently earned among the highest teaching scores, and students have noted their strengths of being more interesting, clear, and tangible than didactic lectures. Using the teacher and student perspectives, we examine the chalk talk\'s strengths and weaknesses compared with common passive and active learning methods. Chalk talks create a real-time, shared space that facilitates the active learning goals of helping students build, test, and revise mental models (conceptual frameworks). The limited amount of information that can be presented and the ability to solicit and arrange students\' ideas on the board lead to the cocreation of valuable conceptual frameworks. Chalk talks require less restructuring of teaching sessions than other active learning methods and are best suited to topics that hinge on understanding of concepts. We advocate for the chalk talk to be reexamined as a promising educational tool given its strengths and the successes that other active learning methods have shown. Furthermore, we provide guidance to help educators deliver chalk talks and discuss future studies that would advance understanding of this powerful teaching tool.

A majority of residents provide care for critically ill patients, yet only a minority of medical schools require ICU rotations. Therefore, many medical students enter residency without prior ICU experience. The third-year internal medicine (IM) clerkship at our institution\'s Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) provided an opportunity for medical students to rotate through an open ICU as part of their inpatient ward rotation. Prior to March 2019, no structured critical care curriculum existed within the IM clerkship to prepare students for this experience.
We created a seven-session ICU curriculum integrated within the VAMC IM clerkship addressing core critical care topics and skills including bedside presentations, shock, and respiratory failure. IM residents facilitated the curriculum\'s case-based, small-group discussions. We assessed curricular efficacy and impact with a pre- and posttest and end-of-curriculum survey.
Forty-one students participated in the curriculum from March to November 2019. As a result, students agreed that their overall clerkship experience improved (73% strongly agree, 24% agree). Students also reported increased comfort in their ability to participate in the management of critically ill patients (44% strongly agree, 51% agree). Objectively, student performance on a 15-question pre- and posttest improved from a precurricular average of 7.5 (50%) questions correct to a postcurricular average of 10.7 (71%) questions correct (p <.0001; CI 2.2-4.4).
Following implementation of our ICU curriculum, medical student attitudes regarding overall IM clerkship experience, self-perceived confidence in critically ill patient management, and medical knowledge all improved.