Twelve Tips for Facilitating Visual Thinking Strategies with Medical Learners

Joyce Ker,1 Philip Yenawine,2 Margaret S Chisolm3 1Krieger School of Arts and Science Graduate, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; 2Watershed Collaborative, Bolinas, CA, USA; 3Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USACorrespondence: Margaret S Chisolm, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 5300 Alpha Commons Drive, Baltimore, MD, 21224, USA, Email [email protected]: As awareness increases of the fundamental role of the arts and humanities in medical education, teachers must expand their skills to include arts-based pedagogical methods. With strong evidence to support its use with medical learners, Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is an arts-based method increasingly being adopted in medical education. VTS provides a structured way of leading interpretative discussions prompted by works of art. However, the simplicity of its structure can be deceiving. As with other teaching skills, faculty development is needed to train educators in VTS facilitation. This is essential not only to optimize VTS’ benefits to participants, but – when VTS is implemented in research studies – to prevent doubts being cast on its impact on medical learners. Educators can apply the twelve tips on facilitating VTS described in this article to guide fruitful facilitation of VTS among medical learners, as well as to enhance discussion-based teaching in general.Keywords: faculty development, arts and humanities, museum-based education, visual arts, teaching methods