Chalk Talk Teaching Scripts

Psychiatry-Focused Teaching Scripts for Medical Students

Index of Scripts

About

Original Creators:

Phil Cawkwell, Ethan Jaffee, Dave Frederick

Circa 2018, as MGH/McLean Psychiatry Residents

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​MOTIVATION:

We entered residency interested in teaching, found ourselves enjoying bedside teaching, and wanted to expand our teaching repertoire to include semi-formal chalk talks on topics that arose on the wards. However, the time demands of our own training got in the way.

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We created this collection of scripts to help lower this teaching barrier for like-minded resident psychiatrists. The scripts are designed to require minimal preparation time and can be given whenever a spare 15 minutes arises. The scripts contain a content review and suggestions for teaching activities that emphasize active learning.

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RULES FOR CHALK TALK TEACHING SCRIPTS:

A good script provides educators with a tool to help them deliver quality semi-formal “chalk talks” with minimal advance preparation. Due to constraints on educators time, scripts need to succinct. Ideally, a script serves as a spark to the resident’s own teaching creativity, while also serving as a content refresher. In terms of content, scripts should not be exhaustive, but rather highlight the most clinically applicable, idea-rich principles with an eye towards disseminating the most essential psychiatric principles to likely future non-psychiatrists.

Scripts should be divided into three clearly labeled parts.

  1. Approach: the resident-educator is given several suggestions on how to relay the information to students.  
  2. Hook: suggest to the resident-educator a way to frame the topic to medical students. Emphasize the big picture. Why should students care about this topic?
  3. Content: Provide the resident-educator with a content refresher that will allow the educator to go from reading the script to teaching students in fewer than ten minutes.

Format:

  • One page in length, no exceptions
  • Extra resources can also be provided but should be in a separate document, not part of the one page script, and should be optional
  • If scripts are derived from specific resources, these sources should be cited in the footer. The footer can also contain the script author’s name, and it might also contain suggestions for further reading.
  • Italicized text within the script indicates a message from the script writer to the resident-educator. Such messages might include suggestions for questions to provoke further discussion.

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Questions? Want to contribute? Email admin@teachingscripts.com 🙂