A method for rewarding collaborative efforts in preclinical assessments.

Student success in basic medical science courses is typically determined by their individual performance on examinations of various types. Previous research both within and outside medical education has shown that the use of educational assessment activities can increase learning as demonstrated by performance on subsequent examinations, a phenomenon known as the testing effect. Activities primarily designed and used for assessment and evaluation purposes can also be used as teaching opportunities. We developed a method for measuring and evaluating student accomplishment in a preclinical basic science course that incorporates both individual and collaborative efforts, encourages and rewards active participation, does not compromise the reliability of the assessment outcome and is perceived by the students as helpful and valuable. The approach involved a two-part assessment activity composed of an individual examination and a small group examination with each component differentially weighted in determining an overall examination score. We found that the method was successful in encouraging collaborative efforts during the group component and provided valid measures of student grasp of the subject matter. We describe the development and implementation of the method, provide data derived from its use in a preclinical basic science course and discuss factors to be addressed when utilizing this approach to ensure fairness and reliability of the outcome. We include brief summary comments from students regarding their impressions of the value of this method.

An approach to determining, delivering, and assessing essential course content in a medical human anatomy course.

Learning objectives typically indicate subject matter judged to be important or that represents essential material to be learned during a course. We report here on our efforts to identify essential course content and determine our effectiveness teaching and assessing this content in our preclinical human anatomy course. Using a consensus driven approach, we identified anatomical structures, relationships, and functional concepts judged to represent essential material in our unit on the thorax that students were expected to be familiar with. We then determined performance on specific examination questions that focused directly on the essential material. Thirty-seven of 48 students (77%) correctly answered all 34 of 51 questions that directly focused on content we defined as essential. The remaining 11 students answered the majority of these questions correctly. The overall mean score was 86% (range 61%-98%). Our review of student performance on the End of Block thorax examination confirmed our belief that we were successful in helping students learn material we defined as essential. We found the process described here to be helpful in defining essential content and for helping focus and improve medical education and learning assessment based on that material. We believe the idea of defining essential content that can be efficiently taught and effectively learned within a proscribed period of time is an important and necessary objective. We believe the approach used here might be successfully utilized in other programs in efforts aimed at quality improvement.

Small group learning/assessment sessions: A method using test enhanced learning to increase engagement in a basic medical science neuroanatomy course.

Previous research has shown that test-enhanced learning with structured feedback facilitates durable learning. We describe a small group learning/assessment activity using these approaches intended to increase engagement and engagement with the course material. We divided our class into six groups of seven students each that worked together in the activity. During each weekly session, course related multiple choice questions were projected and each group instructed to work independently to arrive at a consensus answer for each question. After each question is considered, a faculty facilitator then randomly selects one group to share their choice with the other groups and provide and rationale for their choice. A different group or groups are then called upon to share their choice. When differences emerge, the instructor then facilitates discussion among the groups in an effort to resolve confusion or incomplete or incorrect understanding that becomes evident. We found that attendance for these sessions was greater than for the more traditional lecture based session also included in the course and that students were actively engaged in this learning activity. The success of the small group learning/assessment session is dependent on several factors including the difficulty of the questions and their relatedness to the course objectives, the timing and placement of the session or sessions within the course and the skill of the faculty facilitator in encouraging active participation while ensuring a safe environment in which students can openly share their sometimes incomplete or incorrect understanding of the material.

Draft Genome Sequences of 10 Bacteria from the Marine Pseudoalteromonas Group.

Here, we report the draft genome sequences of 10 marine Pseudoalteromonas bacteria that were isolated, assembled, and annotated by undergraduate students participating in a marine microbial genomics course. Genomic comparisons suggest that 7 of the 10 strains are novel isolates, providing a resource for future marine microbiology investigations.

Invited review: Recommendations for reporting intervention studies on reproductive performance in dairy cattle: Improving design, analysis, and interpretation of research on reproduction.

Abundant evidence from the medical, veterinary, and animal science literature demonstrates that there is substantial room for improvement of the clarity, completeness, and accuracy of reporting of intervention studies. More rigorous reporting guidelines are needed to improve the quality of data available for use in comparisons of outcomes (or meta-analyses) of multiple studies. Because of the diversity of factors that affect reproduction and the complexity of interactions between these, a systematic approach is required to design, conduct, and analyze basic and applied studies of dairy cattle reproduction. Greater consistency, clarity, completeness, and correctness of design and reporting will improve the value of each report and allow for greater depth of evaluation in meta-analyses. Each of these benefits will improve understanding and application of current knowledge and better identify questions that require additional modeling or primary research. The proposed guidelines and checklist will aid in the design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of intervention studies. We propose an adaptation of the REFLECT (Reporting Guidelines for Randomized Controlled Trials for Livestock and Food Safety) statement to provide guidelines and a checklist specific to reporting intervention studies in dairy cattle reproduction. Furthermore, we provide recommendations that will assist investigators to produce studies with greater internal and external validity that can more often be included in systematic reviews and global meta-analyses. Such studies will also assist the development of models to describe the physiology of reproduction.

Novel joint cupping clinical maneuver for ultrasonographic detection of knee joint effusions.

INTRODUCTION: Knee effusions occur due to traumatic and atraumatic causes. Clinical diagnosis currently relies on several provocative techniques to demonstrate knee joint effusions. Portable bedside ultrasonography (US) is becoming an adjunct to diagnosis of effusions. We hypothesized that a US approach with a clinical joint cupping maneuver increases sensitivity in identifying effusions as compared to US alone. METHODS: Using unembalmed cadaver knees, we injected fluid to create effusions up to 10 mL. Each effusion volume was measured in a lateral transverse location with respect to the patella. For each effusion we applied a joint cupping maneuver from an inferior approach, and re-measured the effusion. RESULTS: With increased volume of saline infusion, the mean depth of effusion on ultrasound imaging increased as well. Using a 2-mm cutoff, we visualized an effusion without the joint cupping maneuver at 2.5 mL and with the joint cupping technique at 1 mL. Mean effusion diameter increased on average 0.26 cm for the joint cupping maneuver as compared to without the maneuver. The effusion depth was statistically different at 2.5 and 7.5 mL (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Utilizing a joint cupping technique in combination with US is a valuable tool in assessing knee effusions, especially those of subclinical levels. Effusion measurements are complicated by uneven distribution of effusion fluid. A clinical joint cupping maneuver concentrates the fluid in one recess of the joint, increasing the likelihood of fluid detection using US.

Pattern profiling and mapping of the fat body transcriptome in Drosophila melanogaster.

In Drosophila, the fat body is a collective name for the masses and sheets of adipose tissue that are distributed throughout the fly body. Thus far, >386,000 Drosophila expressed sequence tags (ESTs) have been deposited to the GenBank database, including 10,443 derived from fat body in flies (data accessed on October 7, 2004). The objective of this study was to map the transcriptome of the fat body in flies and thus provide genomics and bioinformatics tools for developing a Drosophila model for addressing the genetic complexity of obesity in humans. The gene-EST Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) matches revealed that these ESTs could represent 12,188 coding genes in the Drosophila genome. Among them, at least 2,261 are expressed in the fat body, including 41 identified as preferentially expressed genes with logarithm of odds >3.0. Self-organizing map analysis revealed a cluster of 290 genes favorably expressed in the fat body compared with genes expressed in five other tissues. Mapping of the fat body transcriptome identified a 1.7-Mb domain on 3L containing 35 genes that were expressed at a much higher level than in other tissues (transcript density factor = 1.0 approximately 2.3).