The Faculty Development Paradox: Applying Competency-Based Education Principles to Faculty Development

EPAs for Teachers or Entrustable Teaching Activities (ETAs) [11, 12]

Fundamental Teaching Activities [13]

Clinician Educator Milestone Domains [14]

Academy of Medical Educators Professional Standards’ Domains for medical dental and veterinary educators [15]

Teacher Role-specific competencies [16, 17]

Clinician Educator Milestones

Mixed-experience community of practice (novice, mid-career, senior) to support progression

Professional Identity formation as an educator

Longitudinal development [16]

Workplace-based learning (peer coaching to improve)

Just-in-time faculty development

Use existing group meetings for teacher development

Individualized Needs Assessments and Development Plans as a Teacher

Master Adaptive Learner cycle as an instructional backbone: Plan–Learn–Assess–Adjust

Coaching (includes peer coaching)

Deliberate practice

Desirable difficulty/productive struggle

Scaffolding

Mindset shifts from fixed to growth

Competency-focused remediation using targeted instruction, coached practice, and reassessment to achieve defined educator competencies

Systems lens towards faculty development

Longitudinal educator portfolios that go beyond trainee evaluations [18, 19]

Data collection metrics to score teacher feedback comments [63]

Peer observation and feedback

Planned, periodic structured observations of teaching (e.g., OSTEs or comparable observed teaching events) used as developmental checkpoints [20]

Dashboards to monitor program-level trends in educator development

Select a competency framework appropriate for your context (e.g., EPAs for Teachers, CE Domains from CE Milestones, or role-specific competencies).

Map existing FD activities to the framework and identify gaps in offerings.

Align outcome competencies with program/institutional goals to ensure strategic relevance.

Use outcome competencies to create job descriptions and role expectations.

Develop digital badges or micro-credentials linked to specific competencies.

Design faculty teaching assessments that reflect outcome competencies.

Label FD offerings by developmental level (e.g., Teaching 101: Foundations of Clinical Coaching, Teaching 201: Advanced Feedback & Remediation).

Publish learning pathways (e.g., New Preceptor → Coach → Educational Leader).

List prerequisites or “recommended before” experiences so faculty can self-select.

Design communities of practice with mixed-experience (novice, mid-career, senior educators together) around key roles (e.g., simulation, small-group teaching).

Pair novice and more experienced educators for observation

Create developmentally scaffolded failure-sharing sessions in which senior educators model learning-from-failure to support identity formation and normalize growth over time.

Have faculty complete a brief competency-mapped self-assessment to identify 1–2 priority growth areas for the next quarter.

Have faculty gather 360-degree input (learners, peers, supervisor/education leader) using a short, structured tool tied to the same competencies.

Use asynchronous modules to build foundational knowledge at self-selected pace, then apply learning in future teaching sessions.

Use peer- or AI-supported practice to rehearse feedback, questioning, or coaching by simulating learner responses before a real encounter.

Use AI to create just-in-time supports (e.g., checklist, flashcards, 5-question quiz) from a key article or guideline for an upcoming teaching moment.

Establish a standardized peer observation-and-debrief process using competency-aligned checklists to support coached improvement.

Design FD sessions around explicit educator competencies and replace ‘objectives’ with ‘competency’ aims.

Build expert modeling into sessions (live or video) so faculty can observe competent practice.

Design skills labs (e.g., feedback lab, coaching lab) with multiple short practice cycles and coaching between attempts.

Break complex educator skills into component parts (i.e., needs assessment, writing goals and objectives, instructional design) and teach them sequentially.

Design sessions so faculty experience scaffolding themselves, reinforcing how to use it with learners.

Replace ‘send to a workshop’ or ‘do a module’ remediation plans with coached, observed, practice-based sessions.

Normalize practice, rehearsal, and struggle in FD sessions and that teaching is a skill that can be developed, not a trait.

Hold an annual FD review meeting that examines aggregated data to identify program-level strengths and growth priorities.

Implement a standardized educator portfolio template that includes selected observation feedback, reflections on growth edges, and development goals over time along with learner and peer observer feedback and evaluations.

Periodically review a small sample of narrative feedback comments from learner evaluations using a brief rubric to assess specificity and actionability.

Launch a voluntary peer observation process using a shared competency-based template.

Incorporate a standardized OSTE as a periodic sampling tool and use aggregated findings to inform FD priorities, resource allocation, and program redesign.

Create a competency heat map to visualize patterns in educator development and identify areas for targeted FD investment.