ID Chalk Talks
ID Chalk Talks are a growing collection of brief, high‑yield teaching scripts created by ID medical educators and reviewed by the MedEd CoP. These scripts can be used to prepare a focused, engaging teaching moment in just a few minutes — ideal for busy clinicians before rounds or for use in local educational programs.
Call for proposals
The IDSA Medical Education Community of Practice is now accepting initial proposals for the development of up to 10 new chalk talks. To help streamline our process and avoid duplicate submissions, we ask all interested contributors to submit their proposed topic before creating any content.
ID Chalk Talks accepted for publication will be posted on the IDSA MedEd CoP MyIDSA page for ID educators and learners to use. Chalk talks will be posted twice a year. Upcoming posting dates are September/October 2026 and April/May 2027.
Timeline
Week of April 20
April 20 – May 22
Week of June 1
June 8 – July 24
Aug. 3 – Sept. 4
End of September
October 2026
Chalk Talk
A chalk talk is a low-tech teaching method that uses handwritten text and/or visual elements to simplify concepts and promote active learning. Brief chalk talks of 5 to 10 minutes can be a particularly effective style of teaching to leverage in the busy clinical learning environment. These tools build on learners’ existing knowledge base, reduce cognitive load and can fit naturally into the rhythm of rounds or clinic. ID faculty are well-versed in the core ID topics that arise yet may lack a ready-made teaching script or graphic, a clear conceptual framework or strategies to effectively engage learners in the moment.
ID Chalk Talks help to bridge this gap. They are a compendium of brief structured teaching scripts developed by ID medical educators and reviewed by the IDSA Medical Education Community of Practice. In just five minutes before rounds, an ID educator can review one of these ID Chalk Talks relevant to a patient the team is seeing — and walk in with a polished, concise, learner-centered chalk talk.
The ID Chalk Talk submission should include a PowerPoint and a one-page Word document. The PowerPoint should contain a single slide showing the finished product of the chalk talk; ideally, you can also include a series of slides showing how you build up to the final product. The chalk talk should use plain text and simple graphics (lines, arrows, highlighted text boxes) that are easy to reproduce. Complex, intricate and detailed images should not be included. Chalk talks that promote active learning (i.e., tables that can be filled in, Venn diagrams that compare and contrast concepts, timelines highlighting disease progression, diagnostic/treatment flowcharts) are preferred. The one-page Word document should be a script that explains the slides, encompassing what the ID Chalk Talk author would expect the educator to explain and discuss with learners. Each paragraph should correspond with an individual PowerPoint slide. Educators could then adapt or deviate from the script as needed.
ID Chalk Talks should only cover content that can be presented in 5 to 10 minutes.
We recommend covering bread-and-butter ID topics that are specific, bite-sized topics. Clinically focused topics are preferred (i.e., differential diagnosis, diagnostics, therapeutics for various infections), but epidemiology and pathophysiology may also be appropriate and can be a useful way of spiraling back to topics trainees learned in the first years of medical school. Content can be focused at the medical student, resident or ID fellow level. Some ID Chalk Talks could provide adaptations for various learner levels.
Please provide one to three learning objectives for your ID Chalk Talk. Learning objectives should 1) be specific, 2) address identified audience needs and interests, 3) facilitate measuring the educational activity’s success and 4) describe how a clinician’s competence or performance will be changed by participating in the learning activity.
Example words and phrases that are not measurable and should not be used are: know, think, understand, comprehend, perceive, learn, appreciate, remember, be aware of, have knowledge of and grasp the significance of.