A Student-Initiated Elective in Medical Ethics: Innovations in Design and Institutionalization

Introduction: This study addresses how to best approach the instruction and evaluation of clinical ethics with preclinical medical students. [See PDF for complete abstract]

Modified Team-based Learning (TBL) as a tool in Problem-based learning (PBL); Observations and Lessons from Year One

Both TBL and PBL attempt to maximally engage the learner and both are designed to encourage interactive teaching / learning. PBL is student centered. TBL, in contrast, is typically instructor centered. The PBL Executive Committee of the UTHSC-Houston Medical School, in an attempt to capture the pedagogical advantages of PBL and of TBL, implemented a unique PBL experience into the ICE/PBL course during the final block of PBL instruction in year 2. PBL cases provided the content knowledge for focused learning. The subsequent, related TBL exercises fostered integration / critical thinking about each of these cases. [See PDF for complete abstract]

Learn-Achieve-Succeed: New technologies for enhancing student performance

Tegrity Campus 2.0 is the first student achievement system that impacts learning across the entire institution, improving retention and student satisfaction. Tegrity makes class time available all the time by automatically capturing, storing and indexing every class on campus for replay by every student. With Tegrity, students quickly recall key moments or replay entire classes online, with digital notes, on their iPods and cell phones. [See PDF for complete abstract]

Pilot Project: Use of Wikis to Supplement Student Orientation

Background: During the orientation process, new students are often inundated with manuals, maps, and other materials essential to their success as students. The experience can leave students feeling overwhelmed, unable to sift through the substantial amount of information that has been given to them. Wikis, in contrast, are well-suited for facilitating userinteraction with vast amounts of diverse information. [See PDF for complete abstract]

Streaming Video: Student Performance and Relative Use in the Preclinical Curriculum

Purpose: To assess the relationship between student utilization of learning resources, including streaming video (SV), and their performance in the pre-clinical curriculum. [See PDF for complete abstract]

The Critical Friends Group: An Innovative Way to Build Intercultural Competence Among Student and Faculty Groups

Introduction Few physicians involved in medical education are likely to have had formal training in teaching. One pedagogical method that can enhance relationships, thus improve teaching and learning is the Critical Friends Group (CFG). The CFG is a collegial support team that offers improved understanding of others. Unconditional high regard for team members frames the interactions in the CFG. These teams could be used to reduce bias and enhance intercultural competence among student CFGs and faculty CFGs. [See PDF for complete abstract]

An Emerging Technology: To Model Patient Education for the Dental Hygiene Student

Introduction: Could Livestream Video, an emerging audiovisual media, be used more effectively than the traditional demonstration method of teaching or modeling dental hygiene students on how to provide chairside patient education? [See PDF for complete abstract]

An Innovative Approach to Impacting Student Academic Achievement and Attitudes: Pilot Study of the HEADS UP Virtual Molecular Biology Lab

Introduction: The Virtual Molecular Biology Lab is an innovative, computer-based educational program designed to teach advanced high school biology students how to create a transgenic mouse model in a simulated laboratory setting. It was created in an effort to combat the current decrease in adolescent enthusiasm for and academic achievement in science and science careers, especially in Hispanic students. Because studies have found that hands-on learning, particularly computer-based instruction, is effective in enhancing science achievement, the Virtual Lab is a potential tool for increasing the number of Hispanic students that choose to enter science fields. [See PDF for complete abstract]

Using Blackboard Administered Precourse and Post course Tests to Assess Student Readiness to Learn and Change in Knowledge

Students arrive at classes with a varying social situations and course subject knowledge. Blackboard is a web based course delivery program that permits testing of students before arriving at the first class. A pretest was used to assess preexisting subject knowledge(S) and a survey was used to assess non-subject (N) factors that might impact the student’s final grade. A posttest was administered after all content was delivered and used to access change in S. [See PDF for complete abstract]

Student-Centered Rehabilitation Medicine Research Elective

Purpose: To provide an opportunity for medical students to participate in rehabilitation research and allows the investigator to develop a database of the characteristics of the medical students choosing this elective. [See PDF for complete abstract]

An innovative approach to impacting student academic achievement and attitudes: Pilot study of the HEADS UP Virtual Molecular Biology Lab

Objective. To evaluate the HEADS UP Virtual Molecular Biology Lab, a computer-based simulated laboratory designed to teach advanced high school biology students how to create a mouse model. ^ Design. A randomized clinical control design of forty-four students from two science magnet high schools in Mercedes, Texas was utilized to assess knowledge and skills of molecular laboratory procedures, attitudes towards science and computers as a learning tool, and usability of the program. ^ Measurements. Data was collected using five paper-and-pencil formatted questionnaires and an internal "lab notebook." ^ Results. The Virtual Lab was found to significantly increase student knowledge over time (p<0.005) and with each use (p<0.001) as well as positively increase attitudes towards computers (p<0.001) and skills (p<0.005). No significant differences were seen in science attitude scores.^ Conclusion. These results provide evidence that the HEADS UP Virtual Molecular Biology Lab is a potentially effective educational tool for high school molecular biology education.^

Using service-learning to encourage community health advocacy among high school students

The project outlined throughout this program management plan aims to develop a health-focused student advocacy group in the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD). At its core, this project will be an opportunity for SAISD students to engage in service-learning, through which they will learn and develop by designing, organizing and participating in meaningful public health service experiences. ^ This program management plan addresses the genuine need for public health community education by using the service-learning model as a framework to engage students to effect change. The plan delineates the process by which the student advocacy group is to be assembled, selection of service-learning project, project objectives, technical objectives, and communication requirements. Ideally, the plan should help to facilitate project coordination, communication, and planning, and to support the direction of resources. The appendices that follow also provide useful tools with which to follow through with project implementation. ^ The plan is about more than providing a tool to educate students about the health issues in their community. It is about providing a way to teach health advocacy and self-interest and encourage civic engagement via public health. Students have the potential to positively effect lasting change among their peers, in their schools and in the community.^

The Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning: A Next Generation Formative Evaluation and Feedback System

Recent developments in federal policy have prompted the creation of state evaluation frameworks for principals and teachers that hold educators accountable for effective practices and student outcomes. These changes have created a demand for formative evaluation instruments that reflect current accountability pressures and can be used by schools to focus school improvement and leadership development efforts. The Comprehensive Assessment of Leadership for Learning (CALL) is a next generation, 360-degree on-line assessment and feedback system that reflect best practices in feedback design. Some unique characteristics of CALL include a focus on: leadership distributed throughout the school rather than as carried out by an individual leader; assessment of leadership tasks rather than perceptions of leadership practice; a focus on larger complex systems of middle and high school; and transparency of assessment design. This paper describes research contributing to the design and validation of the CALL survey instrument.

The Effect of Proximity, Explicitness, and Representation of Basic Science Information on Student Clinical Problem-Solving

Problem: Medical and veterinary students memorize facts but then have difficulty applying those facts in clinical problem solving. Cognitive engineering research suggests that the inability of medical and veterinary students to infer concepts from facts may be due in part to specific features of how information is represented and organized in educational materials. First, physical separation of pieces of information may increase the cognitive load on the student. Second, information that is necessary but not explicitly stated may also contribute to the student’s cognitive load. Finally, the types of representations – textual or graphical – may also support or hinder the student’s learning process. This may explain why students have difficulty applying biomedical facts in clinical problem solving. Purpose: To test the hypothesis that three specific aspects of expository text – the patial distance between the facts needed to infer a rule, the explicitness of information, and the format of representation – affected the ability of students to solve clinical problems. Setting: The study was conducted in the parasitology laboratory of a college of veterinary medicine in Texas. Sample: The study subjects were a convenience sample consisting of 132 second-year veterinary students who matriculated in 2007. The age of this class upon admission ranged from 20-52, and the gender makeup of this class consisted of approximately 75% females and 25% males. Results: No statistically significant difference in student ability to solve clinical problems was found when relevant facts were placed in proximity, nor when an explicit rule was stated. Further, no statistically significant difference in student ability to solve clinical problems was found when students were given different representations of material, including tables and concept maps. Findings: The findings from this study indicate that the three properties investigated – proximity, explicitness, and representation – had no statistically significant effect on student learning as it relates to clinical problem-solving ability. However, ad hoc observations as well as findings from other researchers suggest that the subjects were probably using rote learning techniques such as memorization, and therefore were not attempting to infer relationships from the factual material in the interventions, unless they were specifically prompted to look for patterns. A serendipitous finding unrelated to the study hypothesis was that those subjects who correctly answered questions regarding functional (non-morphologic) properties, such as mode of transmission and intermediate host, at the family taxonomic level were significantly more likely to correctly answer clinical case scenarios than were subjects who did not correctly answer questions regarding functional properties. These findings suggest a strong relationship (p < .001) between well-organized knowledge of taxonomic functional properties and clinical problem solving ability. Recommendations: Further study should be undertaken investigating the relationship between knowledge of functional taxonomic properties and clinical problem solving ability. In addition, the effect of prompting students to look for patterns in instructional material, followed by the effect of factors that affect cognitive load such as proximity, explicitness, and representation, should be explored.

Active Learning in Nursing Education

ALINE is a pedagogical model developed to aid nursing faculty transition from passive to active learning. Based on constructionist theory, ALINE serves as a tool for organizing curriculum for online and classroom based interaction and permits positioning the student as the active player and the instructor, the facilitator to nursing competency.