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Four Faculty Innovators at Eastern Kentucky University recently conducted professional development sessions for Baptist Health Lexington.

The sessions were designed to help Evolving Leaders – content specialists in their respective fields at Baptist Health – develop their own educational programs to be more engaging and learner-focused, according to Dr. Russell Carpenter, executive director of the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity.

The Studio established the Faculty Innovators program in 2015 to model innovative, high-impact teaching strategies. Baptist Health Lexington has had a leadership development program in place for over 15 years, attended by over 700 employees annually. Leaders recognized it was a good time to update the curriculum and teaching techniques.

Dr. Matthew Winslow, Dr. Lisa Day, Dr. Shirley O’Brien and Carpenter presented three two-hour sessions for 45 Baptist Health Lexington leaders. The sessions, titled Engaging Teaching Strategies, Facilitating Active Learning and Teaching for Deep Learning, offered a variety of strategies for executive directors, directors, vice presidents and educators to consider as they design and facilitate their own sessions.

“We have an expertise in academic excellence and excellence in teaching that is needed at many levels, throughout the region and nationally,” Carpenter said. “These collaborations allow us to grow, while placing EKU at the center of conversations about highly effective teaching and learning. Regional engagement allows us to share our research and expertise with members of the community. In turn, Eastern is viewed as an outstanding academic institution ready to share knowledge with the people who need it in our area, which often includes EKU alumni and, in this case, those providing and advancing health care.”

Margaret Kramer, director of educational development with Baptist Health Lexington, coordinated the collaboration for Baptist and reflected on the partnership.

“With the radical transformation demanded by changes in the healthcare environment, it became obvious to us that we needed to update the previous content,” Kramer said. “In previous years, the faculty for the Evolving Leaders program were in-house content experts who utilized traditional teaching methods. The literature reflects the importance of active learning strategies. We reached out to EKU for instructional sessions to infuse our faculty with a variety of updated teaching strategies that were more learning-focused.”

The presentations by the EKU team “were excellent and engaging in content and delivery,” Kramer said. “The classes were taught in small groups, which facilitated the interaction, learning and practice of the introduced skill sets.”

Day returned to serve as a resource for Level 1 Baptist Health Lexington faculty “as they developed their objectives and integrated the strategies learned in the sessions,” Kramer added. “All feedback provided by the leadership that participated was positive. The program launched with great success, and already two other Baptist Health facilities in our system have reached out to inquire about our program and process.”

Carpenter said he expects additional opportunities with Baptist Health and others in the region as people realize the collaborative resources at Eastern.

“We also learned a great deal about teaching and learning in the workplace that we plan to share back with our faculty at EKU,” Carpenter said. “Moving forward, we would like to provide even more access to teaching-focused resources that support academic excellence on our campus.”

To learn more about the Faculty Innovator program at EKU, visit studio.eku.edu/facultyinnovators.