Pre-Clerkship Phase I Report

An excerpt from the Curriculum Planning Report and the Next Generation Curriculum week-by-week grid schedule was distributed to the Curriculum Committee on November 19th. The Committee was asked to carefully review these documents.  Members were asked to submit suggestions for improvements to Don Innes and were also asked to be prepared to discuss the documents at the December 3 Curriculum Committee meeting for approval. 

The history and context for curriculum change, design goals and principles and overall curriculum design are outlined in the document.   The program evaluation plan and planned “next steps” such as curriculum development, curriculum mapping and student assessment are also outlined.   The student assessment part of the plan as well as the CPD program is perhaps the most fluid part of the report at this time and will be further defined as the curriculum continues to develop. Specific time requests within each system for CPD afternoon activities need to be presented in written form.

The distributed excerpt does not include the pages referring each item on the schedule grids to their respective goals and objectives and defining the types of learning activities planned for each item.  This part of the report is quite lengthy and is posted on the Curriculum intranet site under Resources for members to review.

NxGen Curriculum Journal Club

When: Tuesday, December 1 and Tuesday, December 15 from noon to 1:00 PM (Note: Beginning in January 2010, journal club sessions will be held on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month from noon to 1:00 PM in the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library Room 1212)

Topic (12/1/09): Active learning - one hour at a time. Please read the following article and be prepared to discuss how you might use this framework for large group sessions in the Learning Studio: Miller et al. ,THE PIPELINE: Scientific Teaching in Practice, Science  2008: 322(5906), pp. 1329 - 1330.

Where: Mock Learning Studio (Claude Moore Health Sciences Library Room 1212)

Who: System leaders, content thread leaders, and faculty who will be teaching in the NxGen Curriculum

Lunch: Pizza provided by the Medical Alumni Association

Please RSVP to Ashley Ayers (ala5t) and tell us what toppings you DON'T want to see on your pie!

Student Assessment Guidelines

The Student Assessment Community, co-chaired by Jerry Short and Jim Martindale, has developed guidelines for assessing medical students in the new curriculum. The goal of the student assessment system is to provide a fair, accurate, consistent, and efficient measure of student achievement while creating an optimum level of student motivation and well-being. The guidelines are available on the NxGen Intranet site.

A member of the Student Assessment Community is assigned as a liaison to each of the 9 units of the new curriculum (see below). System Leaders should meet with his/her assessment liaison to review student assessment guidelines and discuss the dates of summative exams, "free" weekends, and formative exams.

• Molecular and Cellular Medicine: Linda Waggoner-Fountain
• Microbes: The Essentials: Amy Tucker will contact Tom Parsons
• Musculoskeletal: Melanie McCollum
• Mind, Brain & Behavior: Steve Heim will contact Mary Kate Worden
• Gastro-Intestinal: Darci Lieb will contact Brian Behm
• Cardiovascular, Pulmonary, Renal: Bob Bloodgood will contact Allan Simpson and Mitch Rosner
• Endocrinology/Reproductive: Anne Chapin will contact Megan Bray
• Hematology/Oncology: Allison Innes will contact Don Innes
• Clinical Performance Development: Gene Corbett

Next Major Deadline (11/09/09)

By 8am on Monday, November 9, System Leaders should submit to Veronica Michaelsen the following:

1. A brief description of your system to be used by the Registrar and entered in as the "course" description. This only needs to be a few sentences.
2. An updated draft of your system's hour-by-hour grid that contains ALL of the following: content, assessments, specific learning activities, weekly clinical themes, and a one-line description of all cases. Examples of learning activities are found below. Updated learning objectives should be submitted as well and all learning objectives should be linked to specific learning activities.
• Case presentation or discussion
• Self directed learning
• Patient Presentation (actual patient)
• Simulation
• Clinical Demonstration
• Team Based Learning
• Lecture
• Web-based Materials
• Direct supervision of care
• Review Session
• Discussion (small or large group)
• Problem Sets
• Lab - wet lab
• Panel Discussions
• Lab - dry lab
• Assessment, Formative
• SP activities
• Assessment, Summative

System Leaders Meeting (10/20/09)

System Leaders gathered on October 20th to discuss and review each system's updated content, structure, and learning sequence (e.g., topics, learning objectives, learning and assessment activities, weekly clinical themes, patient cases, etc.). The "NxGen" Curriculum Wall provided hour-by-hour detail of the entire pre-clerkship phase of the curriculum.

System Leaders and Content Thread Leaders will continue to meet to develop and refine drafts of each system's hour-by-hour grid with: content, assessments, specific learning activities, weekly clinical themes, and a one-line description of all cases.

EDUCAUSE Annual Conference

EDUCAUSE is a national association dedicated to advancing higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. U.Va will provide a live video feed of the online version of the national conference from November 4-6. Click here to review the program.

The online feed is a new offering from EDUCAUSE that allows access to a portion of the program from the face-to-face conference in Denver via streaming video and online collaboration technologies. The event will be hosted on Grounds as follows: 

• Wednesday, 4 November, 10am - 7pm ET, Rodman Room, Thornton Hall 
• Thursday, 5 November, 10am - 7pm ET, Rodman Room, Thornton Hall 
• Friday, 6 November, 10am - 1:30pm ET, 201 Clemons

Feel free to drop in and out as your interest in the program dictates.

Curriculum Wall and System Leaders Meeting

Faculty leading the development of each of the systems in the "Nx Gen" Cells to Society curriculum will meet on October 20 in the Health Sciences Library Mock Learning Studio (room 1212) to discuss, review, and refine each system's content, structure, and learning sequence. The meeting will cover topics, learning objectives, learning and assessment activities, clinical themes, and cases.

A series of posters outlining each day within each system of the pre-clerkship phase of the curriculum cover the walls in the Mock Learning Studio. The "Curriculum Wall" provides faculty and students a great visual representation of "Nx Gen" and makes it easy for curriculum designers and faculty to examine the curriculum within and across systems. 

Med Ed Building Webcam

For those not able to look out their window or stroll down Lane Road and Lancaster Way, you can follow the construction of the Claude Moore Medical Education Building by viewing the construction webcam.

Clinical Teaching Cases

The Next Generation curriculum will make wide use of clinical teaching cases throughout the pre-clerkship curriculum. Each organ-system community will decide where and what kinds of cases to use. Faculty will draft the cases, using standard formats as appropriate. In developing the cases, the faculty will integrate learning objectives for both basic science and clinical content, as well as horizontal themes (ex., Professionalism, Ethics) that are targeted to the students’ level of educational development. All the cases will be reviewed by appropriate organ-systems teams, discipline/threads teams, and by the Curriculum Development Support Group.

Cases for Clinical Performance Development will be aligned and/or integrated with cases and content presented in the Organ Systems and reviewed in a similar manner.

These reviews assure that students are prepared for later curricula and that all clinical, scientific, and thematic material is covered and balanced. Further, the reviews assure that cases overall present the full range of patients most commonly seen in practice and the specific illnesses/conditions necessary to general medical education.

Overall, cases will be developed in the framework of a “virtual community of patients”­—an interrelated set of households, families, and individuals who will appear in cases throughout the pre-clerkship curriculum. Further, each student will be expected to maintain medical records on all cases encountered in the curriculum, in effect building an individual, “virtual practice” of patients.

Listening Luncheons Continue

The end of summer and the start of classes mark the return of the "Next Generation" Brown Bag "Listening Luncheons."

Hosted by Randy Canterbury, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Education, and Don Innes, MD, Associate Dean for Curriculum, these luncheons are held on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month and provide an opportunity to share comments, ask questions, and hear more about the purpose, process, and progress of creating a system-based curriculum that is more content-integrated, learner-centered, and clinical performance-oriented.

Thus far, the luncheons have yielded thoughtful discussions, insightful questions, and great recommendations. We'd love to hear from as many faculty and staff as possible and hope you have a chance to join us!

All sessions are from 12:00-1:00pm. Fall Dates include: Thursday, Sept. 24th (McKim Hall 3001); Tuesday, October 13th (McKim 3143); Tuesday, October 27th (McKim 3143); Thursday, Nov. 12th (McKim Hall 3001); Thursday, Nov. 26th (McKim Hall 3001); Thursday, Dec. 10th (McKim Hall 3001).

If you'd like to attend, please contact Mary O'Leary. Attendance is limited to 10 per session (reservations made on a first come basis).