My educational practice has grown organically and unexpectedly over the last four years. I am now involved in ASCM1, a smattering of ASCM2, CPPH (formerly known as DOCH), portfolio and more mentorship relationships than I can count.  Given this breadth finding six teaching sessions over a six month period was trivial.  I could satisfy this requirement over any three week period of the academic year – furthermore given the depth and longevity of my teaching commitments any six sessions are not sufficient to show significant personal growth as a clinician-educator.

The process of logging session impacted me in unexpected ways.  For several years after every teaching session I mentally reiterate how the session went – thinking about went well, what could be improved and how to improve upon them.  These mental reflective exercises have helped form the basis of improvements of future sessions and development of teaching methodologies.  However after initially logging my sessions I came to realize the lack of formality has led to most of my insights and reflections vanishing into the ether – limiting their ability to lead to substantive change.  I have been teaching many sessions on an annual basis for multiple year and I have no idea if I am making the same mistakes repeatedly because I use no formalized method of tracking my internal thoughts and cannot remember from year to year what worked and what did not.  Logging my educational sessions can provide a repository of successes and setbacks to look back upon and analyze.  Part of my preparation for any individual session can include looking back on what was successful and what was challenging over previous iterations to ensure I learn from prior successes and do not repeat the same mistakes over and over.

Another consequence of logging was the unexpected conversations it allowed between myself and my learners.  Educators often feel exhausted with the quantity of feedback they are required to give while learners frequently feel starved to hear feedback.  The frequency of this dichotomy of views continues to surprise me.  Some of my learners commented that having access to my logs and reflections while initially felt weird ultimately helped at least partially resolve this feedback problem.

Ultimately with multiple pulls and demands in my life (like spending two months in Asia) I ultimately fell off the logging band wagon.  I hope to for the next year to be more persistent and use the logging as a persistent platform for dialogue with my students.