The Medical Education Specialist Certified Coursework, which has been officially in operation since 2014, has produced 181 specialists to date. In response to the globalization of medical education, the program has established a system to foster specialists who can work to improve education in accordance with international standards at each educational institution. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 made it impossible to hold face-to-face lessons, forcing the organizers to reform the course. The course resumed in February 2021 as a full online course. Moodle was used as the learning platform, and lectures and group work were conducted via Zoom. There were no major connection problems, and the results of the post-course questionnaire showed a high level of satisfaction and usefulness of the learning. To make this course a good practice for a new era in education, the strengths of both face-to-face and online methods should be incorporated.

Grit is considered one of the important non-cognitive abilities that support the educational process for health professions, which requires a long period of study and training. Grit is defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” Grit has been shown to contribute to career achievement in various fields by supporting commitment to long-term goals.　In the context of health professions education, grit contributes to career achievement by reducing the risk of burnout and supporting lifelong, continuous learning and deliberate practice. This paper discusses two approaches to fostering grit in medical education: one based on achievement goal theory and the other on superordinate goals.

In a workshop for health care education teachers, participants are expected to understand new teaching approaches, acquire them, and prepare themselves for tomorrow’s education. While role play is a well-known method for learning in the clinical classroom, this paper reported on an innovative learning strategy that utilizes skits. Firstly, participants generated ideas and set goals to demonstrate how they would change their teaching from tomorrow. Secondly, they arranged the setting for skits, made scenarios based on their own goals, decided the cast from among the group members, and performed the skits in front of the other participants. Thirdly, they did a peer review and debriefing of their skits. This innovative approach may accelerate participants’ ability to set practical goals that should change their future teaching behaviors.