Course Feedback & Reviews
Course feedback groups with students: These voluntary sessions occur with a small group of students at the request of course leaders. They provide an opportunity for direct discussion and sharing of ideas with a subset of students in real time and on a deeper level than via course evaluations. Most co-leaders formulate 3-4 questions of interest relevant to their course and then facilitate student discussion and encourage constructive feedback by the group. For example: “Students from last year told us X and this year we did Y. What did you think?” Groups are scheduled at the course leader’s requested times by Mirela Skaka in the OUME.
Foundations of Medicine (FOM)1 and 2 student representative(s): Each FOM course is assigned annually one primary (and perhaps secondary) student representative from the Student Body Committee (SBC) and Student Course and Curriculum Committee (SCCC). Course student representatives meet with course leaders to discuss issues of concern to students or faculty, serve as liaison between the class and the course leaders, meets with course leaders after a course evaluation to prepare the internal course review and attends curriculum committee meetings as the student voice.
Internal course quality improvement review: Each year the EPC curriculum committees review every course based on a presentation by the course leaders. This peer review process helps us to continuously improve curriculum quality, share innovations, engage with institutional and national priority areas, coordinate and collaborate more effectively across courses. FOM, CCE and AS course leaders enter data into a Microsoft Word document template provided on the EPC website. The completed course report is presented to the committees and after approved, the course reports are posted on the EPC website.
Periodic Course/Clerkship Review (scheduled on request by contacting Dr. Melissa Fischer and Dr. Mary Zanetti): Periodic meetings with Associate Dean of UME, Dr. Fischer, and with the Senior Director, Dr. Zanetti, of the Institutional Research, Evaluation and Assessment (IREA) are available if requested by course leaders in order to review student feedback, performance and assessment, plan feedback to teaching faculty, feed-forward to other courses and students and course planning for the following year.
Feedback to Faculty: Course and clerkship leaders are responsible for providing faculty with feedback regarding their performance or provided course materials in order to promote ongoing course improvement. Course leaders and administrators also access end of block or course evaluations from the IREA. Students evaluate anonymously individual course and clerkship faculty through the OASIS (Online Access to Student Information and Scheduling) database when they evaluate the course. This is reported in summary format to the course leadership and faculty. In addition, many course and clerkship leaders observe faculty teaching, particularly when they are new to the course (this can be done in real-time or through viewing lecture capture). Each of these methods provides an opportunity to offer specific feedback and reinforce teaching performance expectation with faculty.
Faculty, who self-identify or are identified by course leaders or chairs as needing development, can receive assistance from course leaders, the OUME, or Office of Faculty Affairs. They may reach out to course leaders or individual faculty to support ongoing course improvement.