Global health education for the post-pandemic years: parity, people, planet, priorities, and practices

Global health degree programs are now offered by institutions of higher education in most world regions. Based on our review of the curricula for many of these programs, we identified five domains that are central to current global health education. “Parity” emphasizes health equity as the ultimate goal of global health. “People” comprises the social, economic, cultural, and political contributors to health and access to medical care for individuals and communities. “Planet” encompasses various aspects of globalization and environmental health that affect population health. “Priorities” and “practices” include the values, data, and tools used to design, implement, and evaluate partnerships, policies, programs, and other global health interventions in countries of all income levels. The pandemic is likely to increase student demand for global health education from the undergraduate through the graduate and professional levels. Our “5 Ps model of global health education” provides a comprehensive framework for the core student learning objectives for global health today. Knowledge of each of these domains is essential for preparing students for meaningful experiential learning and skilled professional practice in global health.

Clinical Skills Development in the Virtual Learning Environment

The rapid transition to distance learning in response to the unexpected SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic led to disruption of clinical skills development, which are typically conducted face-to-face. Consequently, faculty adapted their courses, using a multitude of active learning modalities, to meet student learning objectives in the didactic and experiential settings. Strategies and considerations to implement innovative delivery methods and address potential challenges are elucidated. Furthermore, integration of a layered learning approach may allow for more broad perspectives and allow additional interactions and feedback, which is especially necessary in the virtual environment.

Redefining Student Learning Objectives for the General Medicine / Primary Care Clinical Clerkship ~ The Way to Implement Community Based Medical Education

Background: Mie University is one of the first medical schools to initiate a community-based clinical clerkship in general medicine. The curriculum was developed over fifteen years ago based on the personal expertise of the general medicine faculties. The purpose of this project is to update and revise the curriculum and learning objectives by integrating the ideas of community primary care physicians and university faculties involved in clinical clerkships.Methods: We have conducted semi-structured interviews with community primary care physicians. The interviews were based on keywords extracted from the preliminary research. Two researchers independently reviewed the free-coded interview transcripts, organized them into thematic units using thematic analysis, and then discussed and merged them into one list between the two researchers. This list was shared and discussed among the four researchers to create a new curriculum and learning objectives.Results: Nine primary care physicians participated in group interviews and 11 participated in individual interviews. The following themes were identified: 1.role of primary care 2.contextual care 3.hospital-clinic collaboration 4.multidisciplinary care/inter-professional work 5.work-life balance 6.health economics 7.health promotion 8.health policy 9.common problems/common diseases. Conclusion:We have redefined the learning objectives of the general medicine clinical clerkship. The abstracts have been made more specific, which will be more helpful for both teachers and learners.

The Effect of Application of Crossword Puzzle Learning Strategy on Student Learning Outcomes

The function of the crossword puzzle itself is to develop brain nerves that have a refreshing effect on memory, allowing the brain's work function to return to its optimal state because the brain has become accustomed to continuously learning in a relaxed manner. The design of this study is a pre-experimental research design of the type One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design, which is used in pre-experimental research. Because the outcomes of the therapy may be compared to the circumstances before to treatment, the results of the treatment can be known with more accuracy in this research (treatment). The percentages of student learning objectives that were acquired are: low at 6.67%, moderate at 16.67%, high at 40%, and very high at 16.67%. Based on the data gathered, it can be stated that, on the whole, adopting the Crossword Puzzle learning method has a notable effect on students' learning outcomes, as 36.67% of students achieved this level, and 46.67% of students attained this level

A novel Career Development course for Animal Science students pursuing veterinary college admissions

A one-credit hour, elective, professional development course was created at North Carolina State University (NCSU) to introduce pre-veterinary track students to the admissions process and the breadth of the veterinary profession. The course was designed to facilitate career exploration while building self-efficacy through vicarious learning, interactions with speakers in various veterinary subfields, and addressing misperceptions about veterinary admissions. To evaluate the student learning objectives and improve upon the current practices of the course, data from two pre-test and post-test course surveys for 235 course participants between Spring 2014-17 were analyzed. The results of the study showed that students experienced significant gains in self-appraisal (Cohen’s d ranged 1.88-2.53), gathering occupational information (Cohen’s d ranged 1.59-2.53), goal selection (Cohen’s d ranged 2.14-2.53), and planning and problem solving (Cohen’s d ranged 1.88-2.77); as well as experienced a decrease in five misperceptions about veterinary admissions. This novel course is presented as a prospective course for other universities.

Project-Based Teaching of a Manufacturing Class During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Plastics Engineering program at the University of Massachusetts Lowell has taught mold design and engineering to undergraduate students for over 60 years. In 2020, the unexpected arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in March forced the instructors to revisit the class program and objectives. Similar to other academic courses, the class became virtual. This meant redesigning an intensive hands-on manufacturing class into one that could be taught and taken from our home offices while maintaining academic rigor and continuing to meet critical student learning objectives. The timing of the pandemic meant that students, who were completing tooling split designs and starting CNC programming, could not move forward with machining, assembly, and molding. Instead, their projects became virtual learning experiences. This paper provides the analysis and discussion of how new ideas in teaching were implemented to virtually introduce engineering students to the world of plastic manufacturing. The students' work was carried out on plastic part designs of their choice, some of which included thin walls (<2 mm) and micro-scale features (~ 800 ?m) typical of a micro injection molding process.

Making a Tough Choice: Teacher Target-Setting and Student Achievement in a Teacher Performance System Using Student Learning Objectives

The use of student learning objectives (SLOs) as part of teacher performance systems has gained traction quickly in the United States, yet little is known about how teachers select specific students’ learning goals. When teachers are evaluated—and sometimes compensated—based on whether their students meet the very objectives the teachers set at the start of the year, there may be an incentive to set low targets. SLO systems rely on teachers’ willingness and ability to set appropriately ambitious SLOs. We describe teachers’ SLO target-setting behavior in one school-district. We document the accuracy/ambitiousness of targets and find that teachers regularly set targets that students did not meet. We also find that, within the same year, a student’s spring test scores tend to be higher on the assessments for which they received higher targets. This raises the intriguing possibility that receiving higher targets might cause students to perform better than they otherwise would have.

Using Authentic Chinese Doctor-Patient Consultations to Develop Patient-Centered Communication Skills

Researchers in Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) have suggested the importance and benefits of using authentic spoken workplace discourses as teaching materials to develop students’ communication skills in professional settings. However, LSP course designers are still facing the challenges of selecting and collecting authentic workplace conversations, as well as designing instruction to teach the occupational spoken discourses effectively. To address these challenges, this paper presents an innovative module for Chinese for Medical Purposes for pre-med college students at the intermediate-high level. The module uses authentic doctor-patient consultations and adopts the Patient-Centered Clinical Method (PCCM) of Stewart et al. (2014), a clinically validated model in healthcare communication research. The current module demonstrates the approach to determine the student learning objectives based on the PCCM model and the instruction design aiming at guiding students to notice and analyze the discourse features and communication strategies employed by physicians to achieve patient-centered care. The paper also examines learners’ pre- and post-instruction roleplay performances. The qualitative findings show that the learners improved in using patient-centered communication strategies after instruction.

Syllabus Mining for Information Literacy Instruction: A Scoping Review

Background - The course syllabus is a roadmap to curriculum development and student learning objectives providing valuable information to assist library instruction. This scoping review examines research that uses syllabus mining to track Information Literacy concepts and skills in academic settings. Objectives - The present study uses a scoping methodology to examine syllabus mining of Information Literacy with the focus of analysis on the methodologies employed in syllabus review and the recommendations from the studies. Design - Searches of databases of literature from librarianship and education, as well as a multidisciplinary database, yielded 325 journal articles. Inclusion criteria specified peer-reviewed articles from any year, and excluded grey literature. After removing duplicates, 2 reviewers screened titles and abstracts and reviewed full text, yielding 17 studies to analyze. Results - Characteristics of the included studies, methodology, and recommendations were charted by two reviewers. All studies reported retrieving information that increased opportunities for collaboration with instructors and targeted engagement with students, and seven themes were identified. Conclusions - Instructional librarians should be encouraged to conduct syllabus studies to increase collaboration with faculty to develop coursework, to meet student information needs in a strategic manner, and to identify discipline-specific Information Literacy concepts.