Academic Conferences – Fun or Folly?

I went to the Information Technology in Academic Medicine conference last week in Austin, TX. I met many people who are a part of the Instructional Design Community – so nice to put faces to names. To be honest, I think I expected the conference to be very IT focused and outside of my interest level. I was pleased to be surprised – it was a fantastic conference. The ID Community was referred to by many people numerous times during the conference – so I am proud of what has been accomplished so far.

If you did not go to the conference last week, this will give you an idea of what was presented.

I want to put in a plug for the fall AAMC meeting in Austin, TX. Registration just opened. The conference is November 2-6, 2018: https://www.aamc.org/meetings/annual/. Registration is here.

Some of the sessions that I think pertain to the ID community:

Saturday, November 3

• Evidence-Guided Self-Learning: How to Determine What You Need to Learn/Know/Do
• Unhealthy Politics: The Battle Over EBM (I do a bit of work in this area, but not sure how prevalent it is with IDs)
• Towards Competency-Based Time-Variable Education in Medical Education
• When Robots Take Over Teaching? How VR and AI May Transform Medical Education

Sunday, November 4

• Navigating the Medical Education Continuum: Strategies to Increase American Indian Engagement
• Highlights in Medical Education: Faculty Development, Promotion and Tenure
• Development of Expertise: The Role of Learning Science in Medical Education
• The Use of Longitudinal Education Data for Learner Assessments and Program Evaluations
• GIR Education Technology Knowledge-Sharing Session

Monday, November 5

• Capturing Educational Data to Advance Medical Education
• Highlights in Medical Education: Innovations in Teaching Clinical Reasoning
• The Next Generation of Medical School Curriculum: Exploring Curricular Innovation and Change
• An Inside Tour of Visionary Education Spaces

Tuesday, November 6

• Highlights in Medical Education: Faculty Development Strategies
• Highlights in Medical Education: Innovations in Medical Student Curriculum
• Practical Strategies to Achieve Cognitive Integration of Clinical Skills and Basic Science Science