Twelve tips for using the Understanding by Design® curriculum planning framework.

BACKGROUND: Health professions faculty engaged in curriculum planning or redesign can struggle with developing courses or programs that align desired learner outcomes, such as competencies to be applied in a clinical setting, with assessment and instruction. AIMS: Our medical school implemented the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework to achieve alignment of outcomes, assessments and teaching during the renewal of our four-year curriculum. This article shares our strategies and practices for implementing UbD with teams of faculty curriculum developers. DESCRIPTION: The UbD framework is a 'backward' approach to curriculum development that begins by identifying learner outcomes, followed by the development of assessments that demonstrate achievement of competencies and concludes with the design of active learning experiences. UbD emphasizes the development of deep understandings that learners can transfer to novel contexts. CONCLUSIONS: We found UbD to be a flexible, adaptable approach that aligns program and course-level outcomes with learner-centred instruction and principles of competency-based medical education and assessment.

Texas Developmental Center for AIDS Research CFAR Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Pathway Initiative Program.

BACKGROUND: The Texas Developmental Center for AIDS Research (D-CFAR) diversity program, termed the CFAR Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Pathway Initiative (CDEIPI), was created in 2021 to engage high school students and graduate students from Underrepresented Minorities/Black, Indigenous, and People of Color populations. SETTING: The Texas D-CFAR CDEIPI has partnered with 2 Texas high schools with predominantly economically disadvantaged and minority student populations-Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions in Houston, TX, and the South Texas Independent School District Medical Professions High School in Olmito, TX in the Rio Grande Valley. METHODS: A total of 370 high school student learners at both partner schools participated in presentations of research and career paths related to HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 during the 2021-2022 academic year. Afterward, learners completed anonymous surveys to share their self-reported interest in research degrees and careers. RESULTS: Learners reported increased knowledge of related science content and interest in research careers, including HIV-1 research, after each of the sessions. CONCLUSIONS: The programming has been of interest to student learners, and future additions intend to build upon the Texas D-CFAR CDEIPI.

What the Pandemic Experience Taught Us About STEM Higher Education-School Partnerships.

The move to virtual schooling and other measures to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 infection dramatically changed the educational experience for grades K-12 populations during the years 2020 and 2021. STEM teaching and learning, and community partnerships focused on STEM education, were not exempt from the changes. Universities and other community partners had to adapt their STEM partnership programming to address new needs and assist students, teachers, families, and schools throughout periods of at-home learning and the re-reintroduction of in-person classes. Some of the changes included developing new programs, providing health-related guidance to school leaders, and converting student-focused programs to virtual formats. Through these experiences, new approaches emerged and lessons were learned that can be applied to partnership activities during normal times. These lessons included recognizing the importance of addressing inequities in students' access to technology; development of strategies to redesign enrichment programs and classroom instruction for effective online delivery; and identifying and adapting to the range of technologies available to support virtual teaching in differing schools. The increased familiarity by all partners with virtual formats has opened the door to greater participation by students in STEM enrichment programs, online partnerships with STEM professionals and mentoring opportunities.

Multisite Implementation of Radiology-TEACHES (Technology-Enhanced Appropriateness Criteria Home for Education Simulation).

PURPOSE: After encouraging results from a single-institution pilot, a novel case-based education portal using integrated clinical decision support at the simulated point of order entry was implemented at multiple institutions to evaluate whether the program is scalable and results transferable. The program was designed to fill key health systems' science gaps in traditional medical education curricula, ultimately aiding the transition from volume to value in health care. The module described uses commonly encountered medical vignettes to provide learners with a low-stakes educational environment to improve their awareness and apply curricular content regarding appropriate resource utilization, patient safety, and cost. METHODS: In 2016 and 2017, the team implemented the modules at eight US medical schools. A total of 199 learners participated in this institutional review board-approved study; 108 completed the module, and 91 were in the control group. RESULTS: The module group had higher posttest scores than their control group peers, after controlling for pretest scores (ß = 4.05, P < .001). The greatest knowledge gains were on questions related to chest radiography (22% improvement) and adnexal cysts (20.33% improvement) and the least on items related to pulmonary embolism (0.33% improvement). The majority of learners expressed satisfaction with the educational content provided (70.4%) and an increased perception to appropriately select imaging studies (65.2%). CONCLUSIONS: This program is promising as a standardized educational resource for widespread implementation in developing health systems science curricula. Learners at multiple institutions judged this educational resource as valuable and, through this initiative, synthesized practice behaviors by applying evidence-based guidelines in a cost-effective, safe, and prudent manner.

Developing and testing a comprehensive tool to assess family meetings: Empirical distinctions between high- and low-quality meetings.

BACKGROUND: The heterogeneity with regard to findings on family meetings (or conferences) suggests a need to better understand factors that influence family meetings. While earlier studies have explored frequency or timing of family meetings, little is known about how factors (such as what is said during meetings, how it is said, and by whom) influence family meeting quality. OBJECTIVES: (1) To develop an evaluation tool to assess family meetings (Phase 1); (2) to identify factors that influence meeting quality by evaluating 34 family meetings (Phase 2). MATERIALS AND METHODS: For Phase 1, methods included developing a framework, cognitive testing, and finalizing the evaluation tool. The tool consisted of Facilitator Characteristics (i.e., gender, experience, and specialty of the person leading the meeting), and 22 items across 6 Meeting Elements (i.e., Introductions, Information Exchanges, Decisions, Closings, Communication Styles, and Emotional Support) and sub-elements. For Phase 2, methods included training evaluators, assessing family meetings, and analyzing data. We used Spearman's rank-order correlations to calculate meeting quality. Qualitative techniques were used to analyze free-text. RESULTS: No Facilitator Characteristic had a significant correlation with meeting quality. Sub-elements related to communication style and emotional support most strongly correlated with high-quality family meetings, as well as whether "next steps" were outlined (89.66%) and whether "family understanding" was elicited (86.21%). We also found a significant and strong positive association between overall proportion scores and evaluators' ratings (rs=0.731, p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: We filled a gap by developing an evaluation tool to assess family meetings, and we identified how what is said during meetings impacts quality.

Students' Attitudes Toward Science as Predictors of Gains on Student Content Knowledge: Benefits of an After-School Program.

High-quality after-school programs devoted to science have the potential to enhance students' science knowledge and attitudes, which may impact their decisions about pursuing science-related careers. Due to the unique nature of these informal learning environments, an understanding of the relationships among aspects of students' content knowledge acquisition and attitudes toward science may aid in the development of effective science-related interventions. We investigated the impact of a semester-long after-school intervention utilizing an inquiry-based infectious diseases curriculum (designed for use after-school) on 63 urban students' content knowledge and aspects of their attitudes towards science. Content knowledge increased 24.6% from pre- to posttest. Multiple regression analyses indicated suggested that the "self-directed effort" subscale of the Simpson-Troost Attitude Questionnaire - Revised best predicted increases in students' science content knowledge. The construct "science is fun for me" served as a suppressor effect. These findings suggest that future after-school programs focusing on aspects of attitudes toward science most closely associated with gains in content knowledge might improve students' enthusiasm and academic preparedness for additional science coursework by improving student attitudes towards their perceptions of their self-directed effort.