OMERAD Newsletter (November 2019)

November 2019

Director's Message

What Has OMERAD Been Up To?

In addition to working toward our goal, to advance teaching, learning and scholarship in medical education, OMERAD has been engaged in partnership building. In efforts to enhance the educational experience and work-life experience for those in CHM, here are highlights from a few of our partnership activities:

OMERAD (Randi Stanulis, Jan Prybys), in partnership with Michael Brown, MD and the Dean’s office, are leading a cross-college initiative called “Knowledge to Action”, building interprofessional teams to work on problems of practice and implementing scholarship-based solutions
OMERAD (Stacey Pylman), in partnership with Matt Emery, MD, is leading the faculty development efforts to enhance the SIM experience for faculty and students
OMERAD (Randi Stanulis, Amy Guenther), in partnership with the Dean’s Office and Faculty Affairs, are offering introductory, deep dive, and brown bag workshops based on habits of wellness and effectiveness in a college wide-effort
OMERAD (Chi Chang, Rob Malinowski, Ann Taft, Carol Parker), in partnership with Academic Affairs Office of Assessment, are key members of the Assessment Analytics team (featured below).
OMERAD (Stacey Pylman, Amy Guenther, Randi Stanulis, Amy Ward, Jan Prybys), in partnership with the SDC Learning Society Academy, have been coaching clinician-educators who teach in the Academy through an Academy Series “Teaching is Unnatural Work” and through the MEET - Medical Educator-Excellence in Teaching program (featured below).

Stay tuned for more highlights in our spring newsletter issue!

Randi N. Stanulis, Ph.D.

Director

Office of Medical Education Research and Development

Assistant Dean for Professional Development

College of Human Medicine

Assessment Analytics Team - Supporting Data-Driven Decision-Making in the SDC

Pictured: Ling Wang, Rob Malinowski, Dave Solomon, Heather Laird-Fick, Chi Chang, Carol Parker, & Ann Taft

The cutting-edge Shared Discovery Curriculum (SDC) produces new types of assessment data that can inform curriculum design, measure curricular effectiveness, and quite possibly predict student success. It takes a special team to analyze data to accomplish these tasks. The Assessment Analytics Team , made up of faculty and staff from the Office of Assessment and OMERAD, meets regularly to support data-driven decision-making in the SDC. The team of seven consists of leadership, a data manager, and three exceptional statisticians with varying backgrounds including educational psychology, economics, and biostatistics. Says Assessment Analytics Team member Chi Chang, PhD , “The curriculum is revolutionary and premier in the country! We need to know, is it working? What’s the impact of our curriculum? How do students learn in different semesters and in the long run? How can we align our assistance and resources to students’ needs and help their learning experience get better?” This team looks for answers in the data.

Because the new curriculum integrates necessary science and clinical skills content into semester-long courses, the college needs new ways of analyzing data to identify students who are excelling or need extra support, and in what domains. Historically, discipline-specific courses made it easy to identify domain performance, but with subjective grades from instructors it was difficult to make comparisons; however, now the Assessment Analytics Team is excited to use comparable NBME score data to make comparisons to previous years and make predictions for student success on future Step exams.

The Assessment Analytics Team is a valuable resource for other departments. Says Eron Drake, Director of the Office of Academic Achievement, “It is critical that we have access to our institutional data and guidance on interpreting data so that we can effectively develop quality programs and advise students, especially on high stakes exams.” The Team also uses the data to inform student placement in Intersessions based on need. Says Assessment Analytics Team member Rob Malinowski, PhD , “We are short-order cooks for data. We are a repository, we are data brokers, and we process special order requests for reports and data analyses. We are now starting to standardize the process a bit."

The future looks busy for this brilliant team. They hope to continue to provide consultation services to those involved in designing, improving, and supporting the SDC. Information they uncover can inform faculty development and research opportunities. This team thinks not only about how the data can help the SDC internally, but also what novel insights they can share with the medical education world. T hey have already shared 11 conference presentations and one publication with more to come!

Representation at National Conferences

The College of Human Medicine created a buzz with their large representation at the ChangeMedEd conference in Chicago, IL this past September and The Generalists in Medical Education conference in Phoenix, AZ this November. OMERAD faculty were part of the large presence and also presented at other conferences. See the presentations by clicking on the links below.

OMERAD Presentations at ChangeMedEd 2019

OMERAD Presentation at Learning Communities Institute (LCI)

Faculty reflections about their experiences in a learning society: A qualitative analysis (Mavis, Gold, Sudhanthar, Armstrong, Riley)

OMERAD Presentations at The Generalists in Medical Education

Reciprocal relationship between identities as physicians and teachers in an integrated undergraduate medical curriculum (Zheng, Mavis, Pylman, Stanulis , Stanulis)
Virtual communities in medical education: Current needs and future possibilities (Mavis, Beck-Dallaghan, Dzara, Frank, Zheng)
Self-regulated learning: Understanding students' use of learning strategies in their transition to medical school (Zheng & Ward)
A clinician's journey in developing a professional identity as an effective teacher (Stanulis, Sudhanthar, Pylman, Ward)
The role of collaboration and reflection in developing physician's identity as small group teachers (Pylman, Stanulis, Zheng, Mavis , Stanulis, Farver)

OMERAD Presentations at AAMC Learn Serve Lead

MEET Showcase a Success!

The excitement was palpable on a warm May morning at the Wagon Wheel Restaurant in Portland, MI. Eleven Learning Society fellows presented their scholarly projects at the culmination of their participation in the Medical Educator - Excellence in Teaching (MEET) Certificate Program. One attendee said it was, "An entirely successful MEET Certificate project showcase...Randi and her team of College of Education experts ran an amazing program in its inaugural year. "

MEET leaders Randi Stanulis, PhD, Stacey Pylman, PhD, Amy Ward, MEd guided the fellows as they inquired into their own teaching. Each scholarly project was unique to the interest and needs of the fellow and everyone in attendance learned new ways of thinking about teaching and learning in small groups. Said a participant, "The focused thinking on a topic allowed for individualization of the MEET experience and personal mentorship from the MEET faculty. It certainly excited me about producing future educational scholarship." Another MEET participant said, "The scholarly project improved the educational experience for my PCG. It also helped improve my approach to this small group and future groups." Additionally, MEET showcase presenters have been invited to present again at the Learning Society monthly Academy meetings this year.

Interested in joining the MEET Certificate Program in the future? Contact Dr. Randi Stanulis randis@msu.edu .

Awards and Recognition

New Academic Affairs Award Winners

OMERAD's Ann Taft and Rob Malinowski are among the first recipients of the CHM Academic Affairs Awards! Congratulations!

The Staff Excellence Award Ann Taft received recognizes Academic Affairs staff who demonstrate excellence in overall job performance 'above and beyond what is expected.' The committee wanted to recognize the dedication, pride and work ethic that Ann Taft brings to her responsibilities. Coworkers said this about Ann:

“She has been a hidden treasure in OMERAD for a number of years, doing her job and quietly going above and beyond.”
“For years, Ann has led fundraising events in our department. She definitely has a heart for those in need in our community and she encourages the rest of us to care as well!”
“She also now leads the office as a place where we all feel attended to and cared for with supported needs.”
“Her skills, effectiveness, responsibility, willingness to help others, and dedication to our office and the college deserve recognition.”

The Early Success Award for Faculty Rob Malinowski received recognizes individuals new to Academic Affairs who have demonstrated passion for the educational mission, commitment to our work, and skills/abilities that are important to meeting the needs of our education program. The committee was impressed by Dr. Malinowski's multiple contributions to the new curriculum in the short time he has been with CHM. Coworkers said this about Rob:

“He stepped into this role seamlessly, demonstrating a strong capacity for working in a complex environment where the task isn’t always clear. His early successes include his ability to intuitively prioritize, meet deadlines, encourage people effectively and create great products.”
“He is open to learning and models curiosity and excitement. Rob has a fantastic ability to work across disciplines and with multiple ‘bosses.'"
“He has eagerly accepted growing responsibility and authority for projects.”