Chapter 8: Peer Coaching for Medical Educators: Teaching Theory Transformed Into Practice

Peer coaching has become an accepted and respected norm in classrooms across the United States, from kindergarten to higher education. Postgraduate education, including medical education, may lag in the implementation of new teaching practices due to skepticism and/or a genuine desire to employ evidence-based practices. As the data demonstrating the effectiveness of peer coaching grew, Baylor College of Medicine (listed by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top 20 medical schools in the United States) began a peer coaching program as a service to the teaching faculty who wanted to improve their student learning outcomes. What began as a small pilot project has grown into an institution-wide program to promote teaching excellence. In this chapter, the authors recount the history of the peer coaching program at Baylor College of Medicine. They will discuss lessons learned about activities and offerings that did not work well, along with tactics that were successful. They will share some of the theories that influenced the program and examine some of the policies and procedures that had a positive impact. The authors argue that regardless of discipline or content, the science of teaching is the same. In the last 20 years, the neurobiology of learning has made great strides in understanding how humans learn. The peer coaching program encourages faculty to stop using outdated pedagogies that never really worked, and to embrace teaching practices that follow the science.