Keeping an eye on things

 

I’ve been a health professions educator for nearly twenty years – of these, ten have been spent as an educationist. Since completing my Master in Health Professions at the University of the Philippines National Teacher Training Center for the Health Professions, I’ve been more keenly  involved in education research, curriculum innovation and evaluation, and faculty development.

Health professions education is a vast landscape, with so many fascinating principles and frameworks that one can draw from and build good teaching practice with. Sorting through this extensive field, picking out what is genuinely helpful for our students, and keeping track of the evolution of best teaching practices is a complex, constant endeavor, especially when everything in the field catches my eye. I’m no ophthalmologist, but I’ve realized that how I delve into topics in  health professions education is comparable to the movements our eyes employ in order to get clear vision on targets of interest – hence, this blog’s name.

Saccades are quick, scanning eye movements made for the purpose of locating specific things (usually stationary objects) in the environment. Meanwhile, pursuits are tracking eye movements that allow us to fix our gaze and follow moving objects. In the last ten years, I have fixed and moved my educational gaze back and forth, up and down, here, there, and everywhere in cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, visual sciences, measurement and evaluation theory, management science, persuasion and rhetoric, and just about any field that can be drawn from and applied to promote better student learning. Through this blog I hope to share my reflections on all these years of saccades and pursuits.

Let me now invite you to what can be a fruitful dialogue on our concerns in health professions education. Comments are very much welcome: do share your own experiences along with your reactions to these posts, as well as your questions. Let’s keep an eye on things together, and focus on good education practice that will help our learners.