AECOM Faculty Retreat
Appropriate and Effective Use of Computers in Education
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AECOM Faculty RetreatAppropriate and Effective Use of Computers in Education |
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At the end of the conference, there was a round table discussion on a wide range of topics related to education. Some themes that surfaced were
In addition, each participant was asked to say what they had learned and what they think they might apply to their own teaching. Some of these comments have been captured as e-mail and reposted below (please e-mail <cimino@aecom.yu.edu> if you would like to make additions or changes to these comments).
In part this is a continuation of the last part of the retreat where we talked about what we would each do to apply the ideas learned. These are the concrete ideas I came away with.
1) Try to capture the ideas that were generated at the retreat. This is the easiest part for me because I can just delegate most of the task back to all the participants. As you recall, I put everyone on the spot and asked each participant to say a few words about what was learned and how you plan to apply that in your courses. I'd like everyone to send me a breif e-mail message saying the same thing. I'd also like Adrienne and Dick to send me a brief summary of what you presented about the search and evaluation workshops (I hope you saved your notes!). In turn, I will summarize Dr. Nachbar's presention and the afternoon presentations.
2) Stimulate continued expansion of CBE resources. I plan to do this by: Maintaining communication with the retreat participants through e-mail. Make our ideas available to each other and other faculty by linking new information (i.e. the summaries I requested above) to the existing web site. Expand on the information gathered in our exercises by organizing the netlinks section of the CBE web site. Look into setting up a way to allow faculty to comment on outside web sites or submit new web sites for addition to the netlinks list. Look for ways to create course specific net links.
3) Explore simple "value-added" features that would be easy to add to the CBE web site. For example: Link reading references to the VTLS library catalog (when available) Link bibliographic references to Medline (full text if available?) Expand use of web database applications (image database, resource database)
4) Assist faculty in implmenting the ideas you generate. Proactively meet with course leaders prior to course start Come up with information for course leaders to help them computerize materials (what formats, what lead time). Evaluate course software tools (e.g. "Course in a Box", "Top Class").
I will assume responsibility for the medicine clerkship and subinternship materials that we could put on the website-probably just course schedules, reading lists, links to the national curriculum, EBM users guides etc. I next meet with the clerkship group in December and I anticipate that we wouldn't do anything until spring-anticipating having something in place before module A for next year. I spoke for Ed Burns at the retreat,but really need to have him make decisions re: the website for Hematology. I'm slowly working with Peter on the images so we can use them this year. I'll speak to Ed about delivering textfiles for course information/readings etc. If you see him before I do, you can also put in a request.
I also thought the retreat was successful and even more helpful than I had anticipated. As a result of last Thursday, I am already selecting parts of our course syllabus (ICM-C) to put on our homepage. I'm going to ask Susan Coupey, Dan Myers and Marty Cohen their ideas about materials to include before I give the disc to you. I know that this is only a beginning, but I liked the message at the retreat that we should start small and then, build. I look forward to being in touch to set this up and thank you for inviting me to the retreat.
First let me say that I thought the retreat was extremely well-organized. It was clear that considerable time and effort went into the planning and development of the day's format. In terms of ideas generated for the first year ICM, Susan Coupey and I have already begun to discuss the possibilities. I think that the encouragement "to just get started with something basic" was one that resonated for me. We'll start by putting our syllabi on our course page. I can't tell you how many times I've put together mailings of our syllabi to be sent out across the country as a response to various requests. It hadn't occured to me that having the info more readily available would be a tremendous savings in time ,energy and resources. We have also begun to think about how we can more consistently communicate electronically with our preceptors. This is an idea to more fully develop for the 2nd year course as well. I think your idea to continue to be proactive with all of us is extremely important, and necessary.
I'm still trying to sort out how to use computers in graduate and medical school education. I believe, as Al was stating at the Retreat, that use as a repository for increasing amounts of information is not taking the most advantage of the computer. My intents (whether they are realized is another story) are to try to use CBE to address the perennial issue of "diversity in background" in the class. Some have little training and others are pros. The strategy is to identify useful web sites or computer exercises to be used by those who need to be brought up to speed and (with other materials) to challenge those who find the items within the course content deja vu. The first goal is to deal with those with poor background. There are 2 areas I am considering for this goal: exercises in basic biochemistry for the class of 2001 as they enter the Jan-Feb segment of MCFM. (This may be too ambitious in that the time is short to have something in place.)
The second area (mentioned at the Retreat) is to replace or augment the Pre-Course for entering medical students, ie. similar review or background materials, but here in a variety of fields--gene expression, basic molecular biology, genetics, immunology. The second and probably much later goal would be to identify challenging areas where people who know an area will could find interest and growth.