"What Angry Birds Can Tell Us About Educating the Next Generation of Physicians"

In September 2011, Catherine Reinis Lucey, MD, will be joining the UCSF campus as our new Vice Dean of Education in the School of Medicine. Dr. Dave Irby is her predecessor in this position. Dr. Lucey brings with her expertise from the work she has done as the interim dean and vice dean for education at the Ohio State University (OSU) College of Medicine and associate vice president for health sciences education for the OSU Office of Health Sciences.

Click on image to view video

I recently happened upon a presentation that Dr. Lucey gave as part of AcademiX, an education series sponsored by Apple highlighting mobile technologies in higher education.

She bases her ideas of using mobile technologies in medical education on the example of the popularity of the mobile app Angry Birds. She discusses how to engage medical students through interactive learning on a mobile device.

Below is my summary of her key presentation points:

* In the age of "technology assisted learning", we learn best when at point of need (ie, when treating a patient)

* Utopia of medical education: Create the expert physician

* Deliberate Practice - concept for developing expertise (by K. Anders Ericsson), basis for "Outliers" (book by Malcolm Gladwell)

* Developing expert performance requires:
(1) increasing complex challenges
(2) immediate feedback and coaching
(3) time to practice, fail, practice, improve

* The science and power of motivation:
Having a cycle of challenge -- Allowing time for correction -- Time for reinforcement -- A time rechallenge

* Example: Computer games
(1) engaged user challenged to master skills in each level
(2) the device becomes the coach by allowing/denying passage/progress to next level based on skills learned

Examples of ideas generated at Ohio State University School of Medicine -

(1) "Angry" Mammograms app
-radiology training for reading mammograms
-provides levels of complexity & nuances
- tiered in difficulty
- develops pattern recognition

(2) "Angry" Heart sounds
- auditory learning
- reinforce through repetition, like listening to pop music over and over to learn the melody and lyrics

Goal - to embed mobile devices into medical curriculum to increase efficiency in learning in the process of creating the expert physician.

* Presentation video at http://tinyurl.com/3qvjznt
* Presentation slides at http://tinyurl.com/3ptfuon
* Dr. Lucey's bio at http://tinyurl.com/3oktlaa

Check out previous postings from my blog that relate to gaming apps for medical education topics - http://mededlit.blogspot.com/search/label/games

Tips for Teaching Millennials

If you are reading this blog post, chances are you are (a) teaching millennials (b) a parent of a millennial (c) a millennial. Whichever category you fall into, as an educator, we all want our students to look as eager as this child does in class.

Below are tips condensed from their original sources. Visit the links to the original sources to see the very helpful full details related to each tip listed below.

"7 Techniques for Teaching Generation Y Students"
(see full article at http://tinyurl.com/3srwrpx)

Characteristic #1: They are technosavvy.

Recommendation: Don't talk down to them...In other words, you are a guide, a coach; you are not the Computer God in the classroom anymore.

Characteristic #2: They have short attention spans.

Recommendation: Keep it short and sweet... Use relevant examples or you will lose them.

Characteristic #3: They filter data out quickly.

Recommendation: Make your topic introductions sizzle...Introduce your topics so compellingly that your GenY students cannot help but be interested.

Characteristic #4: They multitask very well.

Recommendation: Don't get offended at other activities... Doesn't necessarily mean that you've lost their attention.

Characteristic #5: They consume information quickly.

Recommendation: Keep up the pace... As long as you are presenting the material clearly, you can almost never go too quickly for your GenY students.

Characteristic #6: Information must apply directly to them or you will lose them.

Recommendation: Customize the presentation directly to students' needs...Ask students, "What is it that you are hoping to learn today?"

Characteristic (Challenge)#7: Teaching Generation Y and Mixed Groups

Recommendation: Use body language and other clues to balance mixed groups...Simply ask the group, "How is this pace for you?" Or, "Would you like to practice this concept?"


"Generation Y - The Millennial Generation"

from Generational Learning Styles by Julie Coates. Published by LERN Books, a division of Learning Resources Network (LERN), 2007.
(see full details at http://tinyurl.com/dkbmwt)

1. Develop opportunities for experiential learning.
2. Encourage the development of learning communities.
   
3. Provide lots of structure.
   
4. Provide lots of feedback.
   
5. Use technology.
   
6. Make it fun.
   
7. Incorporate games.
8. Be relevant.
   
9. Utilize their talents.
   
10. Present the big picture.
    
11. Allow for creativity and be creative.
    
12. Offer multiple options for performance.
    
13. Be visual. This group is the most visual of all learning cohorts.
    
14. Be organized.
15. Be smart.
    
16. Be fair.
    
17. Recognize the need for social interaction.
    
18. Remember, talk is essential.
    
19. Structure a learning environment that demands respect and positive reinforcement.
    
20. Tie learning to actions.
    
21. Think positively.
    
22. Be clear and precise.
    
23. Allow focus time.
    
24. Talk is critical.
    
25. Enhance procedural memory with movement.
    
26. Make learning relevant.
    

Using Mind Mapping as a Teaching Tool

How many of you remember the grade school exercise of diagramming sentences? How many of you can claim that you enjoyed the exercises? Very few of you out there, I would guess.

To this day, if you were to ask me how I know that the subject comes before the predicate followed by the complement, I would have no good answer for you. However, I am able to write and read a sentence and know that it is written in proper English grammar. My fifth grade teacher would be beaming with pride that I am able to intuitively retain the grammar she taught me decades ago.

So what does this all have to do with mind mapping? Wait a second...what IS mind mapping. It is a way to visualize a concept by drawing out the relationships between several ideas. Here is a bare bones example of how I used mind mapping to brainstorm what my breakfast menu could look like.

Click on images below to see larger views
.

On a more complex level, you can use mind mapping as a study and teaching tool. Below is a mind map created by allergist and immunologist Dr. Dimov and colleagues at the University of Chicago and LSU to diagram the concept of adhesion molecules.

To find out more about how to use mind mapping as a teaching tool, you should read this article written by a fourth-year medical student in the UK:

Edwards, S, & Cooper, N. (2010). Mind mapping as a teaching resource. The clinical teacher, 7(4), 236-9.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Modern mind mapping has been around since the mid-1970s, having been developed in its current form by Tony Buzan. It works by taking information from several sources and displaying this information as key words in a bright, colourful manner. Mind maps have been described as an effective study technique when applied to written material.

CONTEXT: This paper looks at how to use mind mapping as a teaching resource, and was written as a result of the recent undergraduate 'Doctors as Teachers' conference at The Peninsula Medical School. INNOVATION: Mind mapping is a technique not often used or considered by many teachers. This paper looks at how a busy clinical teacher can apply this technique in a practical, useable way. This allows topics to be more interesting to students and makes both learning and teaching more enjoyable.

IMPLICATIONS: Mind mapping has many potential applications to clinical education, and can be adapted to many situations. It can be used as a teaching resource, as an aid to preparing and reviewing lectures, and the technique allows notes to be written and reviewed quickly, and most importantly enables information to be easily updated. Mind mapping can be used in many situations including problem-based learning, small-group teaching, in a one-to-one context, as an examination tool and for personal revision.

By training yourself to mind map the material you need to learn or teach, your brain will begin to integrate the information into a more second nature understanding. In this way mind mapping is like diagramming sentences, but a whole lot more enjoyable.

Be sure to check out my previous blog post about free and easy to use mind mapping tools. There are several sophisticated mind mapping software that you can purchase as well. Go forth and map!

UCSF's New Teaching & Learning Center opening in January

The brand new state of the art Teaching & Learning Center will be opening its doors in January 2011. The TLC, housed on the second floor of the UCSF Library, will foster interprofessional health education.

This new facility is where students will practice their clinical skills, ranging from working with standardized (actor) patients, to working with simulation models for clinical procedures, and to telemedicine training. The TLC will be the new home as well for the Kanbar Center for Simulation, Clinical Skills and Telemedicine Education.

The project is state funded by Telemedicine and PRIME-US Education Facilities initiative as a result of California State Proposition 1D. PRIME-US is a UCSF specific Program In Medical Education for the Urban Underserved.

In addition to clinical skills learning spaces, there are also seminar rooms, a computer lab, media development center, and community spaces for group discussions and collaborative work. Seminar and classrooms are equipped with multiple large flat panel screens, and high definition video recorders for telecasting with remote learners and for recording class content. Teaching spaces have retractable walls to expand to accomodate different class sizes and equipped with modular furniture to allow for easier collaborative learning.

The TLC will open the first week of January. Come take part in the open house activities the week of January 18th. More info at http://tlc.library.ucsf.edu/ . You will not be disappointed, plus, enjoy views of the cityscape and Golden Gate Bridge.

Team-Based Learning - Is It for You?

Team-based learning (TBL) has steadily gained momentum in the field of education. Back in the late 1970's, Larry Michaelsen, a Professor of Management, then of Oklahoma State University, and now of University of Central Missouri, first termed TBL and showed it to be an effective mode of teaching students in small groups of ideally 4 to 7 students per group.

TBL can turn a previously more passive lecture-based class into an active student collaborative environment. A general TBL session would look like this:

(1) Individual Study: Students are expected to have prepared for the session ahead of time by reading teacher-assigned materials.

(2) Individual Test: The time in class is then open for students to assess their knowledge of the material; first on their own by taking an IRAT (individual readiness assessment test).

(3) Team Test: Groups then work as a team to answer the same IRAT question. Students deliberate and decide on a group answer to the GRAT (group readiness assessment test).

(4) Written Appeals: the class reconvenes as a large group to discuss the answers from each group; instructor provides input to direct the discussion.

(5) Application Question: students work in their groups to apply their knowledge and critical thinking skills to answer a question posed to the entire class by the instructor. The class then reconvenes and discusses their answers with the instructor's oversight.

Students can earn points for each section of the TBL sesion that count toward their course grade.

The resources below give an overview of how TBL may work to enhance your course lectures.

Watch this video of Michaelsen describing the significance of different physical set-ups of teams

This video details TBL at University of Texas at Austin and is an excellent introduction to TBL

LITERATURE [click on the titles below to browse content]

Michaelsen, L.K., Watson, W.E., Cragin, J.P., and Fink, L.D. (1982) Team-based learning: A potential solution to the problems of large classes. Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal 7(4): 18-33. [Click here to request article]

Michaelsen, L. K. (2008). Team-based learning for health professions education: A guide to using small groups for improving learning. Sterling, Va: Stylus.

Michaelsen, L. K., Knight, A. B., & Fink, L. D. (2002). Team-based learning: A transformative use of small groups. Westport, Conn: Praeger.

Koles, P G, Stolfi, A, Borges, N J, et al. (2010). The impact of team-based learning on medical students' academic performance. Academic medicine, 85(11), 1739-45.

Parmelee, D, & Michaelsen, L K. (2010). Team-based learning: it's here and it WORKS!. Academic medicine, 85(11), 1658-9.

Parmelee, D X, & Michaelsen, L K. (2010). Twelve tips for doing effective Team-Based Learning (TBL). Medical teacher, 32(2), 118-22.

Parmelee, D X, DeStephen, Dan, & Borges, N J. (2009). Medical students' attitudes about team-based learning in a pre-clinical curriculum. Medical education online, 14, 1-.

Click here for PUBMED RESULTS for a search on team-based learning

Team-Based Learning (Univ of British Columbia website) - http://teambasedlearning.apsc.ubc.ca/

Procedures Consult: an Online Resource to Brush Up on Clinical Skills Knowledge

"See one. Do one. Teach One…Made Better and Safer”. That’s the tagline of Procedures Consult, an online resource that is now available to you thanks to the UCSF Medical Center and the Library’s joint efforts to set up a subscription to this tool. This comprehensive and concise procedural reference tool details how to prepare for, perform and follow up on the most common medical procedures.

View a quick narrated overview tutorial below

Key features include:
· Videos and illustrations for each procedure
· Self-directed procedures training and testing with trackable results
· Pre-, During, and Post-procedure reference
· Procedural checklists and Universal protocols
· Billing codes for procedures

Additional educational benefits:
· Highlights when patient "informed consent" is required
· Reinforces Joint Commission patient safety concepts
· Conforms to ACGME and ABMS (American Board of Internal Medicine) standards

Helpful ways to browse the content from the Procedures Consult homepage are to: (a) look under the Procedures by specialty listed in the left menu bar (b) type a specific procedure into the search box, or (c) select a particular region on the illustration of the human body.

Below is an example of what a procedures listing contains. Go to http://tinyurl.com/pconsult to view a short narrated video tutorial on how to navigate Procedures Consult.

CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO SEE LARGER VIEW

Options of where to access Procedures Consult:

- Listed under the Popular Resources section on the Library’s homepage
- Download the Clinician’s Toolbar to your browser for a one click link to Procedures Consult

How to access this resource on your mobile device:
- Go to m.proceduresconsult.com *
- Also check out the UCSF mobile page at m.ucsf.edu developed by the Library

Top Reasons to use Procedures Consult:

(1) Clear and concise information about how to perform major medical procedures

(2) Excellent self-review of information you need to know for critical clinical skills training

(3) Ideal teaching tool to offer residents, students, and other medical trainees that allows them to track their learning via self-paced tests

* Setting up mobile access: first go to Procedures Consult - the web resource (http://app.proceduresconsult.com/Learner/Default.aspx) - (NOTE: you must sign into VPN first, if you're accessing this off-campus). In the upper right of their page, click on the "Sign-in" link. Create your account there. That should be what you use to log into on your mobile device when you go to m.proceduresconsult.com.

Free Mind Mapping Tools

Oh boy - I've found some scrumptious free mindmapping tools that I need to share with you!

Mind mapping is a way to visualize concepts by drawing out associations between your ideas. It can be extremely useful as a brainstorming tool and even for teaching. It combines the textual and visual cognitive senses we use to help us understand concepts.

Two absolutely free and absolutely easy to use mind mapping tools are:

(1) bubbl.us - you don't need to set up an account. Simply click on the "Start Brainstorming"button.

The controls are intuitive. For example, hovering over the first box allows you to type in text. You can hover over parts of that box to show crosshairs that allow you to reposition the box wherever you want. The other hovering options allow you to add boxes stemming from the original. You can change the color of the boxes.

When you're done mapping, click on the Menu button at the bottom right of the screen. You can export the map you've created as an image, XML, or HTML file. Below is an example of a mind map I created using bubbl.us:

(2) SimpleMind Xpress - this is a free app for your iPhone or iPod Touch. There is a paid version, but I find the free one does a good job. You can upload your final mind map to your iTunes and then download it to your computer as a document.

This presentation below gives some helpful pointers on how to maximize the effectiveness of your mind mapping exercises.

Mind Mapping

View more presentations from Amir Saif .

These tools produce such graphically appealing mind maps that you'll feel compelled to map out just about anything. Knock yourself out!

EdHeads Virtual Surgery Games

If you're not a real surgeon, but you want to play one (on the web), EdHeads.org has created a site that's just for you.

The EdHeads team creates educational interactive web modules. There are currently nine activities to choose from. The medically related ones are surgical deep brain stimulation, hip replacement, hip resurfacing, and knee surgery.

Once you've entered one of the surgical activities, you'll be taken from the Reception Desk into the hallway of the OR. A virtual surgeon will orient you to your patient and have questions for you to interact with and answer throughout the tutorial. You will be asked to select different surgical instruments and use them during the surgery.

The tutorial is narrated, but you can also select the Subtitles icon to see closed captioning. If you want to skip ahead to different parts of the tutorial, select the Activity Site Map icon.

If you have the stomach to view actual photos of the surgeries being described, click on the Surgery Photos icon.

Included with each activity is a Teacher's Guide to give you ideas of how to make the activities a useful learning tool for your students. There are sample quiz questions and answers, a glossary, and additional helpful resources on the topic.

If you're in the mood for something non-medical, check out the others, such as Designing a Cell Phone or learning how to predict and report the Weather.

Be inspired to have fun!

Cultivating Creativity in the Classroom

As a student, you know that rote memorization is no way to learn something well if you want to remember it in the long run.

As a teacher, you know that overloading your students with facts during an hour-long lecture without giving them a chance to engage in discussion is no way for you to get your message across to them effectively.

As more and more medical students opt to not attend lecture and instead watch or listen to recorded lectures at their own pace, what is an instructor to do?

There are many debates going on in the world of higher education trying to creatively answer this question. There has been no magic solution to this recent conundrum. Educators are forced to be more creative.

Therein lies the answer - instructors must cultivate creativity in the classroom. The following presentation, Cultivating Creativity in the Classroom, was put together by Jamie Tubbs, a 5th grade teacher in Ohio.

As educators, I hope that we can find inspiration in how to engage learners at any age. Tubbs' ideas are well presented in this quick slideset. May it give you pause and food for thought as you think up ways to re-engage with your students and the content you are teaching.

Cultivating Creativity in the Classroom

View more presentations from Jamie Tubbs.

Personal Learning Environments: the new era of education

Technology has taken learning to an entirely new level in the 21st century. No longer do students learn by just receiving information from instructors in the classroom or lecture environment. Tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, and smart mobile devices fold in multiple layers of alternative delivery of knowledge and communication.

Students no longer just write papers or take tests to show what they've learned. They create websites, blogs, and videos to capture and showcase their learning. I, for one, am very excited to see this wave of creativity surge in education. These new tools empower learners to develop a hybrid approach to exploring and defining their own learning styles.

What I've just described is the personal learning environment (PLE).

Watch & listen to this presentation by Graham Attwell, an "educational technologist, researcher and blogger based in Pontypridd in Wales and Bremen in Germany. "

Personal Learning Environments: The future of education?

View more PDF documents from GrahamAttwell.

Read more about PLEs:

- Attwell's compendium paper to the presentation above

- 7 things you should know about PLEs

Watch this great video that clearly paints the picture of our future, if not already present, medical students.

Understanding the Millennials

My parents are Boomers, I'm a Gen-X'er, and my students are Millennials. If you teach Millennials, you will definitely agree that they carry a vibe very different from the previous two generations.

This presentation, "The Generations Game" is very worth going through. It will take you less than ten minutes to read it.

• If you're a teacher - you can get a solid grasp of where your Millennials are coming from.
• If you ARE a millennial - take a look and see what data has been acquired and interpreted about who you are as a generational group.

The presentation is co-authored by two educators in the United Kingdom - Steve Mellor, the Head of Youth and Kids Research at Harris Interactive Europe, and Cathy O'Donnell.

Millenials

View more presentations from Steve Mellor.

(click on the projection screen icon above to view the presentation in full screen mode)

Learning about how our students think will open the doors to how we can keep our students engaged as we develop our plans and innovations to keep medical education on the cutting edge. Knowing our audience is in the best interest of educators and students alike.

Four Big Ideas from the Carnegie Study on Medical Education (video)

This lecture by Dr. David Irby was present on April 3, 2008 for the Stanford School of Medicine Medcast lecture series.

David Irby, PhD, is Vice Dean for Education and Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In his lecture, he discusses a national effort by the Carnegie Foundation to assess the professional preparation of physicians and offer recommendations for how best to update this framework to meet our emerging healthcare needs.

Podcasting Lectures: Friend or Foe

Podcasting of lectures has been the most common use of broadcasting and archiving educational content using media files. "Enhanced podcasts" are growing in popularity because listeners can also view the lecture content, such as PowerPoint slides, while listening to the lecture.

As more students listen to podcasts of their lectures, will this make them less likely to attend lectures? Is this an issue that professors should worry about as they decide to podcast their lectures? Or are we starting to sound like our predecessors who worried if radio would replace the book, if TV would replace the radio, or if CDs would replace LPs?

Below is a presentation by educators at the University of Bath in the U.K. Slide16 through the end of the presentation cover reasons why enhanced podcasts can enhance learning.

Using Podcasting in Teaching and Learning

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: eatbath-present08 podcasting)

There is no denying that some students will be even less motivated to attend lectures because they can view them online. But the benefits outweigh the risks.

As of Aug 2008, there are 52 articles, dating back to December 2005, that mention podcasts.

Here's the most recent article specifically targeting podcasts for undergraduate medical students:

Pilarski, PP, Alan Johnstone, D, Pettepher, CC, et al. (2008). From music to macromolecules: using rich media/podcast lecture recordings to enhance the preclinical educational experience. Medical teacher, 30(6), 630-2.

I also blogged early this year about an article that looked at how podcasting lectures influenced student in-person attendance. Time will tell us what becomes of all this podcasting. But there's no doubt that podcasting will evolve to find its place in education.

Have We Over PowerPointed Medical Students?

Has lecturing with PowerPoint (ppt) made medical students lazy learners? Is there no longer any reason for students to read their textbooks? Is teaching with ppt a disservice to students?

This transcript of a thought-provoking talk given by Dr. Frederick S. Southwick of the University of Florida College of Medicine, may give us some answers to these questions He is the 2007 recipient of the Theodore E. Woodward Award honoring physicians who have made major contributions to medical education research:

Southwick, FS. (2007). Theodore E. Woodward Award: spare me the PowerPoint and bring back the medical textbook. Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association, 118, 115-22.

ABSTRACT
A tutorial for 4th year medical students revealed absent long-term retention of microbiology and infectious disease facts taught during the 2nd year. Students were suffering from the Ziegarnik effect, the loss of memory after completion of a task. PowerPoint lectures and PowerPoint notes combined with multiple-choice questions may have encouraged this outcome; this teaching format was also associated with minimal use of the course textbook. During the subsequent year, active learning techniques, Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) and Peer Instruction (PI) were used, and instructors specifically taught from the textbook. Essays and short answer questions were combined with multiple-choice questions to encourage understanding and recall. Performance on the National Board Shelf exam improved from the 59(th) percentile (2002-2004) to the 83(rd) percentile (2005), and textbook use increased from 1.6% to 79%. This experience demonstrates that strategies incorporating active learning and textbook use correlate with striking improvement in medical student performance.

Problem-based Learning and Larger Student Groups (article)

Problem-based learning groups generally span a size of 5 to 8 students. But what happens when PBL "small" groups start to expand to not-so-small group sizes?

This article details a "clustered PBL" approach where students are divided into 16 groups of 20 - 21 students per group. Each group is subdivided into 7 subgroups that have "clusters" of 2 to 3 students each.

Kingsbury, Martyn P, and Joanne S Lymn. Problem-based learning and larger student groups: mutually exclusive or compatible concepts - a pilot study.
BMC medical education 8(2008):35-.

CONCLUSION:
This clustered PBL methodology can be successfully used with larger groups of students. The key to success lies with challenging and well situated clinically relevant cases together with enthusiastic facilitators. Facilitator enjoyment of the PBL process may be related to adequate training and previous PBL experience, rather than academic background. The smaller number of facilitators required using this clustered PBL approach allows for facilitators with 'a belief in the philosophy of PBL' to volunteer which would again impact on the success of the process.

11 Advantages of Using a Blog for Teaching

Here is an interesting presentation, titled 11 Advantages of Using a Blog for Teaching by Frank Calberg, a strategic inspirator from Zurich, Switzerland.

View Upload your own

This blog that I have created has been a way for me to teach to the many people who I will not be able to come face to face with because of distance and time. For example, I had an average of 350 views of this blog just in the month of June. On average, I meet with about 20 people per month in person or via email to help them with their literature searches. So the fact that I can teach that many more people through this blog is a testament to the power of using a blog to disseminate knowledge farther and wider.

If you have never created a blog and want to play around with how to create and use them, you can start with Blogger, which is free. There are other alternatives such as Wordpress or Typepad. If your institution already has purchased blogging software, contact your administrator to find out about using it.

Using a blog to teach can be a fun, interactive, and dynamic tool for you to consider using in your role as a teacher.

What's Your Learning Style

Wondering how you best learn and process information?

Take this quick quiz and find out if you're a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learner.

Today's college and grad students were born in the mid-1980's and early 1990's. They are referred to as "millennials" and "digital natives".

Boomers, Gen-Xers, & Millennials: Understanding the New Students
Oblinger, Diana. 2003. Educause, July/Aug, p 37 (8 pages).

Read about how educators can find ways to approach different learning styles in an evolving set of learners.

Audio and Video Podcasts of Lectures (article)

There is ever-increasing use of podcasts of lectures in higher education. Along with this comes concerns of whether this form of delivering education may decrease class attendance and if podcasts truly improve student learning.

The article below addresses these issues and sheds light for those of you who currently podcast or are thinking of podcasting your lectures.

Copley, J. (2007). Audio and Video Podcasts of Lectures for Campus-Based Students: Production and Evaluation of Student Use. Innovations in education and teaching international, 44(4), 387-399.

ABSTRACT
Podcasting has become a popular medium for accessing and assimilating information and podcasts are increasingly being used to deliver audio recordings of lectures to campus-based students. This paper describes a simple, cost-effective and file size-efficient method for producing video podcasts combining lecture slides and audio without a requirement for any specialist software. The results from a pilot scheme delivering supplementary lecture materials as audio and video podcasts are also presented, including data on download patterns and responses to a survey of students on podcast use. These results reveal students' enthusiasm for podcast recordings of lecture materials and their primary use by students in revision and preparation for assessments. Survey responses also suggest little likely impact on lecture attendance as a consequence of podcasting, but indicate that podcast recordings of lectures may not be effective in facilitating mobile learning.

Constructing Better Multiple-Choice Test Questions

Do you lie awake at night because your students' exam scores have gone down and you worry that, maybe, just maybe, your test questions were not up to par? Or is it just time to polish up some of those tried and true exam questions that you've been using for the past 10 semesters?

The hero to the rescue for building strong multiple-choice test questions is the Contructing Written Test Questions For the Basic and Clinical Sciences manual produced by the National Board of Medical Examiners.

There are four sections that cover:

1) Issues regarding format and structure of test questions
2) Writing one-best-answer questions for the basic and clinical sciences
3) Extended-matching items
4) Additional issues (with appendices)

There is a PDF of the entire manual available. If you prefer not to print all 180 pages out at once, you can also view each section individually.

Faculty at the Univ of Pennsylvania School of Medicine also put together a 38-slide powerpoint presentation based on this manual and used it as part of a faculty development series.

Faculty 2.0 (article)

Wondering how to keep up with teaching the new generation of learners - those techno-savvy students who populate your classrooms?

Check out this article: Faculty 2.0. Hartman, JL. (2007.) EDUCAUSE review, 42(5), 62-76.

ABSTRACT
Much has been written recently about the Net Generation--the generation (roughly twelve to twenty-five years old) that makes up the majority of students attending U.S. colleges and universities--but relatively little attention has been given to the college and university faculty who teach them. Faculty roles and the processes of teaching and learning are undergoing rapid change. The three traditional roles of college and university faculty are teaching, research, and service, with the relative emphasis on each varying by institutional type and mission. Among the three roles that are undergoing change, teaching and research are being most significantly altered by technology. Although research and publication are undeniably important components of the professional lives of many faculty members--for some, they form "the" most important component--the authors are focusing here on the less-visible changes brought about by technology in the teaching and learning space and on how these changes are fundamentally reshaping the processes and tools associated with the institutional structures, extending to the roles and responsibilities of campus IT leaders and organizations.