The Association of Midwifery Educators is beginning their second decade of “connection and collaboration” with an amazing line-up of projects and continuing education offerings. Support for preceptors has been a priority for AME from the beginning and they offer an excellent series of on-line courses focused on the challenges encountered by preceptors. Now AME is launching an exciting new series that includes:
Meeting the needs of adult learners
How to apply theories and principles of adult learning to curriculum, program design, clinical and classroom learning and meet the needs of diverse learners.
Student assessment: You taught it but did they learn it
Assessment tools that are fair, objective, accurate, valid, reliable; constructing effective test questions; norm and criterion referencing; learning management systems and test banking.
Ethics and Social Justice in midwifery education
Creating a socially conscious educational environment, applying principles of social justice to midwifery care within the context of the US health care system, moving individuals and institutions toward a culture of inclusivity.
There is also a wealth of information on AME’s website, designed to help anyone who is creating a course, looking for clinical teaching aids, thinking about starting a school or preparing a program for accreditation. The website is well-organized so that preceptors, academic faculty, administrators, and aspiring midwives can easily find content that fits their interests. AME’s Facebook page is another way to stay in touch with the latest news and resources.
The Clinical Directors Collaborative is another service AME provides to support midwifery educators. Clinical Directors of all the MEAC accredited midwifery schools meet monthly for 1 to 1 ½ hours to discuss topics and issues of mutual interest, to network, troubleshoot problems and share resources. The monthly calendar is listed on AME’s Clinical Directors Collaborative webpage.
A recording of AME’s 2016 annual meeting held in December is available on their blog. This one-hour meeting included updates on AME’s various projects which, beyond their web-based resources and continuing education courses, include:
Expanding Access to Midwifery School Accreditation, a new collaboration with the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council, to create a peer-to-peer institutional mentoring
Participation in the Academic Collaborative for Integrated Health’s Project to Enhance Research Literacy with the aim of developing a Guide to Evidence Informed Practice for Educators
Hosting meetings of the Clinical Training Task Force
Sponsoring student presentations at the MANA conference
Developing the AME Board of Directors through recruitment and training on power and privilege in midwifery, anti-racism and equity work
NACPM appreciates the tremendously important work being done by AME. We are also thankful for the support we’ve received from AME over the years – co-sponsoring the 2012 CPM Symposium and partnering with NACPM to present our webinars. We encourage everyone involved in midwifery education to join AME today!