EDUCATORS' FORUM
Editor's Forum - Newsletter - August 2009 9(8)
Univ. of Nevada School of Medicine - Office of Medical Education
Editor’s Comments
Our UNSOM self-study report has been submitted to the LCME thanks to the
hard work of many people at the school. I enjoyed the opportunity to get to
know the school and its faculty and students a little better through this process.
Also, it was a great chance to highlight our strengths and focus what we need
to work on for the future.
As we head into the next academic year, we have a chance to look forward to
orientation and new learning opportunities, and for the faculty, to reflect on our
teaching strategies. Below you will find some inspirational ideas from Dr.
Trudy Larson’s presentation this spring on “50 Ways to Leave Your Lecture:
Interacting with Your Learners.”
Thanks,
Jennifer Kimmel, M.D., Editor
Topics of interest can be submitted on the last Monday of the month to Robbyn Tolles,
Asst. Editor, at rtolles@medicine.nevada.edu or me at jkimmel@medicine.nevada.edu .
In this issue:
-- Orientation Is upon Us
-- Announcement Concerning Student Course and Teaching Evaluations
-- Teaching Strategies
-- LCME Update
-- Medical Humanities Program with Holocaust Survivor
_________________________________________________________
Orientation Is upon Us
Just a few reminders from our colleagues at Admissions and Student Affairs –
Orientation is the week of August 10 – 14, 2009.
Students - if you signed up to assist with orientation, please check your
schedules concerning the date and time for your activities.
Faculty – Please join us for the Pancake Breakfast in the quad between
Howard and Manville to welcome friends and family of our incoming students.
Time: 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM on Friday, August 14th.
The White Coat Ceremony will be held at 5:00 PM on August 14th in the Silver
and Blue Room of Lawlor Events Center. A reception will follow the ceremony.
Announcement Concerning Student Course and Teaching Evaluations
For 2009-2010 Academic Year
By Gwen Shonkwiler, Ph.D.
The Office of Medical Education will be moving to a new on-line system for
collection of course and teaching evaluation data for all Year 1 and 2
courses beginning in August 2009. All Year 1 and 2 students will receive
automated email reminders at the end of each course that will contain a live
link to a Checkbox survey. There will be a separate survey for each course
evaluation and one survey with all teaching evaluation items for each course.
This system will replace the WebCampus pages that have been utilized for
evaluation data collection for the past 2 years. The course and teaching
evaluation forms that will be used for the upcoming 2009-2010 academic
year for Years 1 and 2 courses will be distributed at the Course Coordinators’
meeting on August 18th. If you have any questions about the new data
collection system, please contact Gwen Shonkwiler or Sarah DeArman in the
Office of Medical Education.
Teaching Strategies
Courtesy of Trudy Larson, M.D. and the “Boot Camp for Professors” Program
What kind of teaching produces the most learning? Individual tutoring! The
only practice that comes close to this as an instructional method is
“instructional alignment” in which the methodology is purposefully chosen to
focus on an integrated approach aimed at practice with the knowledge or skill
being learned; the methodology is directly tied to the desired outcome.
So what does the research say about the second best method for learning?
Students teaching other students. All of us who teach know that we often don’t
thoroughly understand a subject or skill until we have to teach it to someone
else. Teaching forces us to engage with the material in an interactive way;
this can also be promoted through cooperative learning.
Ways to achieve this end within the classroom –
• Have students pair up and practice explaining a concept to each other,
a form of Think-Pair-Share. Or, have one student demonstrate a skill to
a partner or the class.
• Set student tasks to a higher level of learning beyond memorization.
Health professionals’ jobs typically operate at a higher level of
intellectual development. For instance, physicians must apply
information to new situations, look for and recognize patterns in
information (analyze), evaluate evidence and lab tests in order to
determine their value for patient care, and create differential diagnoses
and treatment plans from the knowledge gained in the patient interview,
physical exam, and their imaging and lab tests.
• Use cases. Present the case first so that the student must learn the
science to explain the patient’s condition and treatment. This
immediately demonstrates the necessity of learning the science in order
to properly care for a patient.
• Use personal response systems (e.g. Clickers) to evaluate students’
understanding at intervals throughout your lecture. Students know that
they have to respond (interact with the material) and can’t just sit there
passively.
For a PowerPoint presentation on this topic, visit the OME Educator’s
Forum website at
http://www.medicine.nevada.edu/dept/OME/edforum.asp. In addition,
you may contact Dr. Shonkwiler for further information or a
demonstration at gshonkwiler@medicine.nevada.edu .
• Create opportunities to reflect on and respond to a situation or current
research question. Students could write their answer on a 3x5 card or
email it to you.
• Have students work in groups in or out of class. For example, students
could work through and present problem sets.
• Set up a role play to have students practice patient education
techniques.
• Have students engage in a “Quick Think” in which you ask them to
engage in the material: compare and contrast, paraphrase, select the
best response, correct an error, reorder the steps, draw a conclusion, or
support a statement based on information that you have given them.
This technique can be used frequently and does not consume large
amounts of classroom time.
• Have a student summarize the important concepts for the day. You can
choose a student at random so everyone needs to be thinking about
this as the class progresses.
In summary, research shows that retention increases as new neural networks
are created through repetition and active learning. Teaching is more fun when
everyone is engaged in the process!
LCME Update
On July 21st, the Office of Medical Education submitted our self-study findings
to the LCME Accreditation site visit team. Just to advise you of the breadth of
this endeavor, the package contained:
• the LCME Executive Summary
• the databases from the five committees who diligently analyzed School
of Medicine data over the past year on the
- Institutional Settings
- Program for the MD Degree
- Faculty
- Medical Students, and
- Educational Resources
• The Independent Student Analysis
• The AAMC Medical Student Graduation Questionnaire results
• The Appendix
Many thanks are due to the committee chairs, faculty participants, and medical
students who spent hours of their time working to support our school.
What is left? By September 10th, we hope to send along any updates or
revisions for the original documents, so please let us know if there are major
changes happening in your courses or clerkships. A summary of self-study
findings will be posted on the UNSOM website at:
http://www.medicine.nevada.edu/dept/ome/LCME.asp
As a reminder, the LCME Accreditation Site Visit will occur on October 18 –
22, 2009.
Medical Humanities Program with Holocaust Survivor
From Marin Gillis, L.Ph., Ph.D.
"Through the Eyes of a Child": An Evening with Eva Kor- Holocaust
Survivor"
During World War II Eva Moses Kor and her twin sister Miriam were
separated from their family within the first 30 minutes of arriving at Auschwitz
Birkenau. They never saw their family again. Eva is one of the few surviving
twins inhumanly experimented on by Dr. Joseph Mengele. Out of her
uniquely tragic ordeal, acquired at fearful price, she has emerged with a
brilliantly victorious message of forgiveness. Eva is coming this fall to
University of Nevada, Reno to share this message. The event is free and
open to the public.
Date: September 30, 2009 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Location: Nightingale Concert Hall
University of Nevada (Reno)
Sponsored by: Nevada Humanities, Holocaust and Peace Studies Program
at UNR, Division of Medical Humanities and Ethics at UNSOM and others.
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