VIDEO: Hands-on training helps students meet SMART goals
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ORLANDO — Using SMART goals can improve interpersonal educational programs, according to an expert.
At the annual American College of Lifestyle Medicine conference, Mary L. Wagner, PharmD, MS, an associate professor of pharmacy practice and administration at the Rutgers University Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, presented a poster on integrating SMART objectives — goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound — into a health care curriculum.
Over several years, Wagner and colleagues worked with hundreds of students in an interprofessional training event, which included student-led screening of community volunteers. Based on the results, students worked with the community volunteers to address a problem with SMART objectives.
“I had several different settings in which I implemented the SMART objectives, and the more hands-on coaching the students got, the better prepared they were to do the objectives,” Wagner told Healio.
She said Most students felt that the activity “enhanced their ability to understand SMART objectives, develop SMART objectives and help them with their patient communication skills,” she said.
However, just half of the students met their goal, so supplementary hands-on coaching sessions were offered.
“But the best learning experience was when students were required to make a presentation to the class regarding their experience in coaching, where they described their process, how they created a vision statement, the impact of coaching, the impact of accountability with a group partner, and they had to provide literature support to back up their findings,” she said. “For example, a student found that increasing fiber in his diet helped his acne, and he provided literature support to show how it changed the gut biome, improved lactobacillus, which supported the improved acne. He then made that presentation, and that increased his experiences of being more likely to sustain his goal, because he had the evidence to prove why it worked.”