QuizTime: Innovative Learning Platform to Support Just-In-Time Asynchronous Quizzes to Improve Health Outcomes.

QuizTime is an innovative, asynchronous, spaced learning platform that provides just-in-time learning to increase knowledge and retention. QuizTime was created in 2015, and since then, its effectiveness has been tested and studied across multiple healthcare learning interventions. This paper describes the importance of spaced learning in knowledge acquisition and retention, and the motivation behind the creation of the innovative QuizTime platform. We demonstrate the usefulness of this platform, as shown by multiple case studies using QuizTime, to increase and engage medical students, residents, physicians and health care providers with new quizzes and interventions.

Implementation of an unconscious bias course for the National Research Mentoring Network.

PURPOSE: Increased awareness and mitigation of one's unconscious bias is a critical strategy in diversifying the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) disciplines and workforce. Greater management of unconscious bias can enhance diverse recruitment, persistence, retention, and engagement of trainees. The purpose of this study was to describe the implementation of an asynchronous course on unconscious bias for people in STEMM. Specifically, we explored who engaged with the course and reflections from participation. METHOD: A five-part, asynchronous Unconscious Bias Course was developed and was hosted on a national mentoring platform starting in July 2020. To examine course engagement, we assessed the demographics of course participants and completion. Participant responses to reflection questions after each module were also synthesized using qualitative methods. RESULTS: Overall, 977 people registered for the course and 42% completed all modules. In the reflection responses, participants reflected on their unconscious biases in their lived experiences and how it relates to actions, judgements, external factors, stereotypes, and un-intentionality. Participants also reflected on microaggressions, their impact on the recipients and others, and the relationship between microaggressions and unconscious bias. Participants reported four key strategies used by allies against unconscious bias: immediately acting (83%), reflection (46%), improving the organizational culture (30%), and individual-level ally-ship (44%). Strategies for self-awareness included: reflection, pausing/breathing, and self-observation. CONCLUSION: The assessment of the Unconscious Bias Course implementation revealed the course reached a wide cross-section of people in STEMM and demonstrated that participants were able to reflect on the underpinnings of the course. This course, and its suite of offerings, support a nationwide effort to mitigate bias and prepare individuals to be culturally competent in a diverse society in order to foster a STEMM environment that caters to individuals' success and diversification of these fields.

NRMNet: Building a National Resource for Mentorship, Networking and Professional Development to Enhance Diversity.

Background: To address the need for diversifying the biomedical research workforce, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the Diversity Program Consortium (DPC) with the goal of developing, implementing, assessing, and disseminating interventions and programs to enhance the participation and persistence of individuals from underrepresented backgrounds in biomedical research careers. Intervention: As part of the DPC initiative, the NIH funded the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN), which aimed to increase diversity of the biomedical research workforce through culturally responsive mentorship, networking, and professional development. In 2015, the NRMNet portal was developed to provide a broad-based network of mentors who are accessible to diverse mentees across the country. The portal also provides networking and professional development resources that support mentee transitions from one career stage to the next. Results: NRMNet is the gateway for career stage-specific mentorship, networking, resources, and professional development programs for trainees across the biomedical, behavioral, clinical, and social sciences. In the first five years, the NRMN strategic recruitment efforts resulted in an expanded network of nearly 13,000 diverse mentors and mentees with NRMN representation in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Consistently, over the first five years, racial and ethnic diversity was reflected in composition of mentee and mentor groups: 66% of 6,526 mentees and 33% of 3,866 mentors were from underrepresented groups. Conclusions: The NRMNet portal is a promising effort for enhancing participation and continued engagement of undrerepresented individuals in biomedical research careers by providing culturally responsive mentorship, networking, and professional development for individuals at all career stages.

MyNRMN: A national mentoring and networking platform to enhance connectivity and diversity in the biomedical sciences.

AIMS: Increasing the diversity of the biomedical sciences workforce is a national priority. Having a mentor, and more crucially, a personal network of mentors, improves the likelihood that an individual will pursue an advanced degree and career in the biomedical sciences. The chief mission of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) is to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the biosciences workforce through the mentoring of historically underrepresented individuals. METHODS: To address this need, we created MyNRMN, an online mentoring platform that connects mentors and mentees nationwide. The platform enables multiple forms of mentoring and recommends connections to mentees that will help them build their personal networks. RESULTS: The MyNRMN online platform has registered more than 13,500 active mentors and mentees across all 50 states and from more than 2100 institutions. Black and Hispanic mentees are highly represented. DISCUSSION: MyNRMN has expanded opportunities for mentorship in the biomedical sciences, particularly among those not from a culture or institution that historically supports mentorship. The platform's robust search and recommendation capabilities and graph database technology enable members to grow their personal network of mentors. CONCLUSION: The MyNRMN online platform has proven successful in connecting mentees and mentors nationwide, expanding the pipeline in biomedical science careers to attract a more diverse workforce.

Changing Medical School IT to Support Medical Education Transformation.

PROBLEM: Many medical schools are modifying curricula to reflect the rapidly evolving health care environment, but schools struggle to provide the educational informatics technology (IT) support to make the necessary changes. Often a medical school's IT support for the education mission derives from isolated work units employing separate technologies that are not interoperable. INTERVENTION: We launched a redesigned, tightly integrated, and novel IT infrastructure to support a completely revamped curriculum at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine. This system uses coordinated and interoperable technologies to support new instructional methods, capture students' effort, and manage feedback, allowing the monitoring of students' progress toward specific competency goals across settings and programs. CONTEXT: The new undergraduate medical education program at Vanderbilt, entitled Curriculum 2.0, is a competency-based curriculum in which the ultimate goal is medical student advancement based on performance outcomes and personal goals rather than a time-based sequence of courses. IT support was essential in the creation of Curriculum 2.0. In addition to typical learning and curriculum management functions, IT was needed to capture data in the learning workflow for analysis, as well as for informing individual and programmatic success. We aligned people, processes, and technology to provide the IT infrastructure for the organizational transformation. OUTCOMES: Educational IT personnel were successfully realigned to create the new IT system. The IT infrastructure enabled monitoring of student performance within each competency domain across settings and time via personal student electronic portfolios. Students use aggregated performance data, derived in real time from the portfolio, for mentor-guided performance assessment, and for creation of individual learning goals and plans. Poorly performing students were identified earlier through online communication systems that alert the appropriate instructor or coach of low quiz grades or missed learning goals. Graphical and narrative displays of a student's competency performance across courses and clinical experiences informed high-stake decisions made about student progress by the promotions committee. Similarly, graphical display of aggregate student outcomes provided education leaders with information needed to adjust and improve the curriculum. LESSONS LEARNED: With the alignment of people, processes, and technology, educational IT can facilitate transformational steps in the training of medical students.

Online Faculty Development for Implementation and Use of Student Portfolios.

INTRODUCTION: Over the past decade, portfolios have gained popularity in medical education as tools to evaluate and provide feedback about learning and completion of professionally authentic tasks. Though faculty development has been noted to be key for successful portfolios, there are few available resources. As part of an interinstitutional collaborative project, we have developed online faculty development modules that provide pedagogical information about portfolios, practical advice, and resources from the available literature. METHODS: The materials associated with this publication include downloadable modules, which take approximately 45 minutes to complete and can be paused at any time, and sample questions to facilitate small-group discussion with faculty either in the planning stage of portfolios or as part of program evaluation of an institution's portfolios. RESULTS: A survey taken by faculty from four medical schools after completion of the modules showed that they were well received, with 41% of participants stating that they were very knowledgeable after undertaking the modules compared to 11% before undertaking the modules. Faculty reported increased interest in the topic and increased confidence in their ability to undertake planning for development of portfolios at their institution and considered using the modules as a mandatory curriculum for portfolio coaches at their institutions. DISCUSSION: We suggest that these modules be used for individual self-development, as part of faculty development sessions for portfolio coaches and mentors, or to provide faculty with background information about portfolios during the planning phase of portfolios at an institution.

Status of portfolios in undergraduate medical education in the LCME accredited US medical school.

AIM: We sought to investigate the number of US medical schools utilizing portfolios, the format of portfolios, information technology (IT) innovations, purpose of portfolios and their ability to engage faculty and students. METHODS: A 21-question survey regarding portfolios was sent to the 141 LCME-accredited, US medical schools. The response rate was 50% (71/141); 47% of respondents (33/71) reported that their medical school used portfolios in some form. Of those, 7% reported the use of paper-based portfolios and 76% use electronic portfolios. Forty-five percent reported portfolio use for formative evaluation only; 48% for both formative and summative evaluation, and 3% for summative evaluation alone. RESULTS: Seventy-two percent developed a longitudinal, competency-based portfolio. The most common feature of portfolios was reflective writing (79%). Seventy-three percent allow access to the portfolio off-campus, 58% allow usage of tablets and mobile devices, and 9% involve social media within the portfolio. Eighty percent and 69% agreed that the portfolio engaged students and faculty, respectively. Ninety-seven percent reported that the portfolios used at their institution have room for improvement. CONCLUSION: While there is significant variation in the purpose and structure of portfolios in the medical schools surveyed, most schools using portfolios reported a high level of engagement with students and faculty.