Increasing Student Engagement by Integrating Technology into a Team-Based Learning Curriculum

Increasing Student Engagement by Integrating Technology into a Team-Based Learning Curriculum

Grant:
Teaching with Technology Institute (TTI)
Academic Year:
2011 - 2012 (June 1, 2011 through May 31, 2012)
Funding Requested:
$2,500.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
kavitasw
Overview of the Project:
For this project, the pediatric core curriculum incorporated six team-based web modules, each of which requires two hours of class time. Created by members of the pediatric faculty, these highly interactive sessions portray real-life clinical scenarios. Because all of the students are actively answering the questions together, there is much more discussion from the start, whereas previously, students answered questions individually and then "argued" for their own response. Our research shows that students are more engaged in the classroom during these sessions as compared to didactic lecture. We are improving the modules by adding multimedia. Integrating radiographic images, laboratory results presented as they appear in patients' charts, and video or audio clips of important physical findings will enhance these cases and highlight key clinical features.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:
1. To use available computer technology to integrate images and video into an existing team-based learning curriculum used in the pediatric clerkship core curriculum.2. To increase student engagement by using the technology to enhance the activity.
Project Achievements:
Over the course of this project, a website was created using Sitemaker. The program was used to make a set of application questions for each team-based learning module that incorporated imaging studies, laboratory results, or growth charts. This was used over the course of the curriculum, and was edited and updated with feedback from faculty and students.In general, the multimedia application questions were well liked by students. It was noted that the students would spend time discussing the questions right away, instead of reading the question silently and coming to their own answer, for which they would argue with the group. The collaborative environment seemed to improve using this program.Personally, this project encouraged me to think more critically about our team-based learning sessions. As i edited the questions to fit more into a multi-media approach, i realized that we could push the students more--for instance, instead of telling them the labs were normal, we could show them the labs and have them interpret the values. This forces the students to engage more directly with the material, and put the questions into real-life context, which i appreciated. Because we could push them to do more interpretation, i think the students learned more, and this helped me realize in my other teaching--on rounds, for example--that i could encourage students to be more specific in their interpretations. From a department perspective, we are working to adapt the new curriculum to our current technical capabilities in the new hospital.
Continuation:
We will continue to use the computer-aided application questions. However, we will need to continue to refine the program, as we adapt to our new hospital.
Dissemination:
We are in process of writing an article describing the implementation of team-based learning into our pediatric clerkship curriculum, and demonstrating the effectiveness of the teaching method.
Advice to your Colleagues:
The people i worked with on the project--Diane, Chris--were extremely helpful, and were able to adapt my vision to the current technology available. Having someone from the Medical School involved also helped us find technological support for the group. Our main challenge was initially in figuring out a good physical setup--one that was affordable--and that took some time. Another challenge has been finding a way to make the location work when we moved to the new hospital; we are still figuring that part out, but i think we will be ready to restart the computer programs soon!
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