National Academy of Distinguished Educators in Pediatrics (NADEP)

New members will be elected every 3 years through rigorous peer review* of application materials including a personal statement, a curriculum vitae, three letters of support (nomination letter and 2 letters of recommendation, defined below), and an abbreviated focused educator portfolio. Calls for applications will be distributed to members of all pediatric organizations by email. Applications will be reviewed for productivity (i.e. quantity of work), scholarship and educational excellence (i.e. quality of work as a teacher, developer of teaching materials, educational leader) in at least four of the 5 established domains of educator activity: Teaching, Learner Assessment, Curriculum Development, Mentoring/Advising, and Educational Leadership/Administration. See Toolbox for Evaluating Educators: You be the Judge! Gusic et al, 2013 for quality indicators in each of these domains.

*Peer review of applications in the first year will be completed by members of the Academies Collaborative, a national forum for health professions teaching academies that is interdisciplinary.  Having them conduct the reviews will avoid the appearance or reality of bias among pediatric-specific organizations.  In later years, NADEP members who will represent all pediatric organizations will review applications.

Eligibility

• Be a pediatric educator (MD or PhD or equivalent) who is involved in the education of medical students, residents, fellows, and/or faculty in pediatric educational programs.
• Hold the rank of professor (tenured or non-tenured), currently or at time of retirement. Individuals of other ranks or without an academic rank may be considered under special circumstances.
• Demonstrate a record of significant productivity, scholarship, educational excellence, and a strong national reputation for one’s educational work.

Instructions

Please note an application fee of $125 will be due at the time the NADEP application is submitted. In order to minimize the burden of the application process, we have created an online application form where you can upload the relevant documents. We recommend that you study the Application Scoring Criteria before completing your application.  Click on the link to view this document.

The deadline for submission of materials to the web portal is by 12:00 am EST, January 9, 2020.

1. In your personal statement (2 pages maximum, single spaced, 11 point Arial font), discuss your educational philosophy/mission, creativity of educational contributions to the broader community of educators, how your educational philosophy/mission aligns with NADEP’s mission, and how you expect to contribute to NADEP if inducted.

2. In your CV, be sure to list your educational contributions (e.g., leadership in committees, editorial boards, moderator/discussant roles, reviewer for educational journals, and membership in educational bodies such as NBME or ACGME). Before you upload your CV, please highlight-visually using a highlighting tool, what you consider

• three most significant educational honors/ recognitions
• three most significant/impactful educational presentations
• three most significant/impactful educational publications

3. Upload three (3) Letters of Support:

• Nomination letter from your supervisor at your institution or a senior pediatric educator (at your institution or elsewhere)
• Two (2) Letters of reference from educators, peers or trainees (at your institution or elsewhere) who are familiar with your work

4. Your focused Educator Portfolio (EP) should be a maximum of 5 pages long (11 point Arial font, single spaced). Include the following:

• Executive summary of your activities as an Educator and Scholar
• Select 4 domains of educational activity that have been important to your career, choosing from the 5 standard domains
  • Teaching
  • Learner Assessment
  • Curriculum Development
  • Mentoring/Advising
  • Educational Leadership/Administration.

Describe your activities in each of the 4 domains, referring to Glassick’s 6 Criteria for Excellence: Clear Goals, Adequate Preparation, Appropriate Methods, Significant Results, Effective Presentation, and Reflective Critique.  In each domain, at a minimum you should discuss Significant Results and Reflective Critique, plus at least one other of Glassick’s criteria.

The following is a sample guide for pages 2-5 of the Focused EP

Educational Domain 1: [name]

Quantity or Scope (Number of hours/week or days/year, number of learners/mentees affected, number of curricula developed, breadth of educational activities)

Quality: (refer to Glassick’s criteria: significant results and reflective critique, plus one other)

Breadth of impact: (institutional, regional, national/international), depth of impact on learners, educational programs or national scholarship

Continue as above for all 4 domains.

Click on this link to view a sample Focused EP using Glassick’s Criteria for Excellence for the domain: Educational Leadership/Administration.

5. Please submit the payment of $125.00 as the application processing fee. Your application is not complete without the submission of this payment.

Click here to fill out the application to be considered for the inaugural class of the National Academy of Distinguished Pediatric Educators.

FAQs

1. What is the deadline for submission?
The deadline for submission of materials to the web portal is by 12:00 am EST, January 9, 2020.

2. What is the purpose of the portfolio?
The portfolio will provide reviewers (from the Academies Collaborative, see above) with a snapshot of the applicant’s work in four out of five areas deemed important by the Association of American Medical Colleges for medical educators.   Glassick’s widely accepted criteria for educational excellence will be used to judge the portfolios, CVs, and letters of support.  Including portfolios in the application will give reviewers more information than a CV alone provides.

3. Who should write my letters of support?
Your letters should be written by individuals who are most knowledgeable about your work as a medical educator.  The nomination letter can be either from your supervisor at your institution or a senior pediatric educator (at your institution or elsewhere).  Two (2) Letters of Reference should come from a senior colleague, peer, or trainee.  Ultimately the three letters should provide a holistic representation of the work you have done and the impact you have had.  It will be helpful to have letters written from different perspectives.

4. What will be done with the peer-nomination names listed in the application?
Your list of senior educator names will help us to identify individuals who might be encouraged to apply to NADEP in the future. Providing this information is optional.

5. How are you minimizing bias and ensuring equity in reviews across all pediatric organizations?
The founding committee is partnering with the Academies Collaborative Steering Committee to review applications with a minimum of bias.  This group consists of educators across the breadth of health professions education who oversee teaching academies at their home institutions.  Only Academies Collaborative members who are not eligible to apply for NADEP will review and score the applications.  The committee has collaborated with the Academies Collaborative leaders to develop an application scoring system that is grounded in the educational literature.  The reviewers will be tasked to identify applicants from a range of pediatric professional organizations, not only members of the Academic Pediatric Association (APA), which is sponsoring NADEP.  In later years, NADEP members who will represent all pediatric organizations will review applications.

6. Do I need to be a member of APA to apply?
No, you do not need to be a member to apply to NADEP.  If accepted as a member, you will be asked to pay yearly APA dues for however long you remain an active member of NADEP.  The founders of NADEP reviewed the financial structures of similar academy models and each had a fee for the support of the organization.  As the APA will be managing all the structural aspects of NADEP, the yearly APA membership fee will provide equivalent support for the academy by its members.  NADEP will be using APA technology, infrastructure, and staff support. CANVAS – the learning management system of the APA—will support NADEP’s web portal.

For questions related to eligibility or the contents of the application, please contact Latha Chandran at Latha.Chandran@stonybrookmedicine.eduor Teri Turner at Teri.Turner@bcm.edu