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9th Annual Meeting 
of the 
International Association of Medical Science Educators 

July 14-19, 2005
 

Abstract Category: Methods

Poster ID: M17

 USE OF TEAM LEARNING TO PROMOTE INTEGRATION OF BASIC SCIENCE CONCEPTS

William E. Seifert, Jr., Ph.D.*, Jeffrey Actor, Ph.D., Lisa Armitige, M.D., Leonard J. Cleary, Ph.D., Rebecca Cox, Ph.D., Nachum Dafny, Ph.D., Daniel Felleman, Ph.D., Janet Groff, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., Elizabeth A. Hartwell, M.D.,  Judianne Kellaway, M.D., Virginia Moyer, M.D., Carla Rogers, Ph.D., Edie E.  Shulman, M.D., Norman Weisbrodt, Ph.D., and Allison R. Ownby, Ph.D., The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, Texas 77030 U.S.A.

Small group sessions, such as those in problem-based learning, are an effective format for promoting clinical problem-solving. The challenge for medical schools is to provide the large number of faculty members required to facilitate all of the groups. Team learning is an educational strategy in which a large class can experience some benefits of small groups under the supervision of a minimum number of faculty. At our institution, team learning has been used for first year students in the Biochemistry, Physiology and Epidemiology courses with encouraging results. This year, we applied this strategy in a different context.

In the first year, our curriculum is composed primarily of traditional discipline-based courses. The faculty wanted to help students cross the boundaries of concurrent courses, as well as connect courses running in successive semesters. Perhaps more important, they wanted to associate basic science content with the Introduction to Clinical Medicine course, in which students learn basic skills of the patient interview and physical exam. This past year, three team-learning sessions (called Integrative Exercises) were introduced into each semester of the first-year curriculum.  The clinical scenarios included premature birth, diabetes mellitus, hyperthyroidism, botulism, parasitic infection, and Marfan's syndrome. Because of time constraints, we used just the classroom components of team learning. The 200+ students were divided into teams of 4-5. Each session ranged in time from 1 – 1.5 hours. Students were presented with a series of problems, given a fixed amount of time to discuss an answer, and all teams revealed their answers simultaneously. Students submitted a written answer to one designated problem for grading. In one exercise, student preparation was assessed by an online readiness assurance test. Overall student response to these exercises was highly positive. Initially, there were some difficulties with scheduling and time allocation that have since been resolved. Students believed that these exercises helped them to integrate material among basic science courses and the clinical skill course. Some recommended that these exercises be presented more frequently and that a peer evaluation component be introduced.

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