Flint Wang

Like many faculty at Penn, I have students who struggle to pay attention, even to short 15-30 minute chalk talks (which these days actually often take place at a white board). As a physician-educator in an inpatient hospital setting, the challenge is real. Finding 15 minutes of undivided learner attention without urgent phone calls and airport-level decibel alarms is nearly impossible. Although these chalk talks contain information I know my students need and are motivated to learn, I have to assume my learners will be called away or hope I will finish early so they can attend to sick patients. As a result, I grapple with how to capture their attention, present information that is immediately applicable, and ensure that they take useful notes that do not end up in the shredding bin. Here are some techniques that have transformed my teaching and have helped to cement the information in my learners’ minds. 

I begin by capturing students’ attention with something that frames the topic with a memorable gimmick. For example, in a talk about liver failure causing jaundice, I use Homer Simpson’s cartoon yellow body with fill-in boxes connected to each distant part of the body affected by liver failure. I don’t mind that my students might only remember Homer Simpson if it means that the memory of that visual allows them to re-make the fill-in boxes next to each body part. Some of the lectures I still remember years later did not ask me to remember every piece of information but rather set up just enough visual cues to allow my mind to re-derive the rest of the talk. It might sound cheap, but who is really going to forever remember a numerical list of the causes of chest pain? Even as a teacher, I find myself no longer referencing my answer sheet and instead just remembering the central theme and thinking about all the branch points from there. Similarly, in a talk about abnormal heart rhythms where a patient might need medications or an electric shock, I use images of Pikachu to line the flowsheet of treatment options (hint: Pikachu is a Pokémon character that fights its enemies with lightning bolts).

Next, I ensure my students’ engagement by giving them something concrete in their hands to engage with and signpost what they are learning. Nothing says “you received teaching today” more than walking home with a colorful handout that matches the visual fill-in boxes on the white board. More importantly, with a time-pressed audience eager to go back to their other tasks, it’s helpful to have the empty boxes and section dividers already drawn on the white board so they know when you’re 25% through, 50% through, and almost done and can adjust their focus appropriately. As an added bonus, I usually print the handout visual with the answers filled in on the back because I encourage the learners to take a cell phone picture for future reference and the computer-typed answer sheet is more attractive to reference than handwritten scribbles. If I do not have a handout printed and ready for distribution, I try to bring a small stack of white paper so that my learners have something to write on if their only other paper has patient information on it. In the end, I do whatever it takes to ensure a deliverable in-hand or on the phone.

I find that students learn more if I design the talk in layers so they can see the big picture and then (if we have time) get into the finer details. This method has allowed me to scale up or down whether I think I have five minutes with the learner or can flesh everything out in 30 minutes. If I see I’ve lost my students’ interest or there is a pressing clinical situation, I can easily omit layer five and not look like I got flustered and gave an incomplete talk. Learners who feel novice to a topic may have difficulty diving into extreme detail without first getting a 30,000-foot view. I often recommend learners to read Wikipedia about a medical topic for a layman’s interpretation, then read a summarized meta-analysis, and then read an individual highly-specific journal article if they wish. Learning in layers makes a complicated topic more digestible. For example, in a chalk talk about blood pressure medication, I first introduce what I call the “Hypertension Diamond,” which is A, B, C, and D headings in a diamond visual formation. Learners guess which medication classes each letter corresponds to. Then we go through and mention the two most common medications in each category. Next, we go back through the diamond and talk about the side effects or special indications for each of those medications. And finally, we review several patient cases and reason through the medication selection in each case. Learners are not forgiving about chalk talks or lectures going overtime, and this method has helped me avoid those situations.

Finally, I like to end each chalk talk with a bonus question that ties in some level of emotional salience. Invoking some degree of fear or real-life consequence can make a teaching point more meaningful. This could center on how you would treat a family member, what occurred in a malpractice lawsuit you were in, or a medical mistake that occurred. For example, I end a chalk talk about heart attack medication management with the question, “If you were telling your parents what dose and formulation of aspirin they should have in their medicine cabinet in case they ever had a heart attack, what would you tell them?” In another talk about escalation of therapies for low oxygen levels, I mention a real-life cardiac arrest case where chaos led to no one realizing the oxygen tubing has fallen off the oxygen tank connector.

A great chalk talk doesn’t just present information—it tells a story, sparks curiosity, and connects with the audience. By focusing on planting some attention-grabbing gimmicks, providing colorful handouts with clear fill-in boxes, presenting in framework layers, and adding stories with emotional salience, I can captivate even my highly distracted audience. While numerical lists or brief decision trees can be helpful, the most effective talks may be ones that learners can easily reference or re-derive from a central visual. With a bit of clever planning and a willingness to engage, I’ve created chalk talks that can be not just informative, but genuinely memorable.

Flint Wang is an associate professor of clinical medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine.

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This essay continues the series that began in the fall of 1994 as the joint creation of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Lindback Society for Distinguished Teaching. 

See https://almanac.upenn.edu/talk-about-teaching-and-learning-archive for previous essays.