In the AO Foundation, faculty development is the key for members to achieve successful teaching roles, providing them with opportunities to challenge themselves while advancing their career.

Alexandre Jaccard from Brazil was extremely happy with the event that catered for his strong educational motivation: “I enjoy sharing knowledge, encouraging people, and inspiring students. For me, CEP was the biggest event of 2019! It made me a better teacher and gave me all the tools I need to organize events with AO excellence.”

Combining the elements for excellence in education

The CEP program duration was six weeks. It started with online preparation five-weeks prior to the face-to-face event; and the one-and-a-half day in-person event was again followed by a one-week online follow-up. The participants were equipped not only with theoretical understanding but also with practical skills required to understand and combine different elements that are needed to compose an effective educational event.

Upon program completion, participants can apply the key principles of curriculum design and management to AO events. They will be able to base their instructional design on problem identification, needs assessment of target learners, learning objectives, educational methods, evaluation, and feedback.

Participants of the CEP are well placed to succeed as chairpersons of AO educational events with the broad range of educational principles and best practices they learned.

According to Alfredo Guiroy from Argentina, the most relevant learning was to plan according to different teaching modalities. A couple of years ago, Guiroy had attended the AO Faculty Education Program, and claims it was the best educational experience he had ever had. “Therefore, my expectations for the CEP course were extremely high! Nevertheless, the course exceeded my expectations.”

“I think the most important thing I learned was that the planning of the different teaching modalities must be extremely thorough to achieve the desired results in terms of learning. I am very grateful to AO Spine for giving me the opportunity to attend these courses, and I hope they reflect in better performance when organizing future activities,” Guiroy concludes.