Educational needs assessment, development of learning objectives, and choosing a teaching approach.

BACKGROUND: How physicians are evaluated throughout their careers and how training programs are accredited has shifted from demonstrating what we teach and what we are learning to demonstrating the achievement of competence. DISCUSSION: This article discusses some of the components involved with determining and providing necessary educational experiences. These steps apply to various educational needs and settings such as development of curriculum for training programs, clinical staff development, courses in continuing medical education, and identifying learning needs throughout practice. Covered in this article are three components to this process: needs assessment, development of learning objectives, and choosing a teaching approach. A needs assessment is a first step in this process and can be applied to determining revisions in curriculum, identifying needs in clinical staff development, and to self-identifying individual learner status. Once conducted, the identified curriculum needs are linked to the development of learning objectives and outcome statements that identify the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that learners are expected to demonstrate. Finally, understanding of teaching methods is essential to selecting the ones that best fit the identified needs and outcomes of the educational experience.
CONCLUSION: Understanding the separate components involved with learning and curriculum development can ultimately lead to improvement and enrichment of the experiences of learners and educators.