Teachfest Royale

Sponsored by the Academy of Educators, Teachfest Royale: An 8-Minute Didactic Challenge is a teaching skills competition. Teachfest Royale highlights our rich clinical learning environment and our deeply intertwined tripartite mission of clinical care, research, and education that underpins WashU Medicine’s success.

The Internal Competition

Each participant prepares an 8-minute teaching talk on an assigned theme. The department/ program will arrange for 3-4 faculty judges who will use a rubric to rate the presentation on design, content, delivery and time.  The participant with the most points wins.

All faculty, but particularly junior faculty, are encouraged to participate!

School-Wide Competition

Winners from each internal competition will give the same presentation (revisions in the interim allowed) at the WashU School of Medicine school-wide competition, which will utilize the same format described above.  The winner of the school wide competition will be rewarded with a new and impressive listing on their CV, bragging rights for him/her/themselves, bragging rights for their department/ program, and the honor of hosting the competition trophy in their office for the year.

This competition is inspired by a similar competition which has been held for many years at Emory University.  Below are examples of the type of presentations we are looking for:

1. Emory DHM’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@emoryhospitalmedicine3833
2. The winning presentation from the Emory National Teaching Invitational can be viewed at this timestamp: https://youtu.be/fvxH0GFV7BU?si=1CTisJTXfPlCKQKA&t=4094

2026 Theme: To be announced

Date/ Time: To be announced

Location: In-Person (Calendar invite sent with location)

Register to Participate: E-mail academyofeducators@wustl.edu

Register to Attend: To be announced