The Curricular Affairs Office is responsible for the production of a comprehensive academic calendar for both the first and second year students. This schedule includes course number, session start times, session end times, session formats, session topics and faculty members teaching/leading sessions.
This schedule has several important purposes. It is used:
Course schedules should be as detailed as possible. For AAMC reporting purposes, knowing the date, start time, end time, format (see descriptions of formats listed below), topic and the names of faculty member(s) teaching each individuals session is very important. AAMC requires that we report to them the amount of time each course spends in each educational format in addition to the amount of time each course uses for each type of assessment. Finally, we are requested to report by hour the number of hours spent at various categories of educational sites per course.
Educational Formats:
Computer Assisted Instruction: Computer-assisted instruction is an organized body of material presented by means of a computer or computer systems.
Case-based: Case-based educational methods are integrated curricular activities or courses in which patient-related information is the focus of the learning experience. These may be problem-based learning sessions. The cases may be written or computer-based, or may include actual or simulated patients.
Grand Rounds: Grand rounds are structured departmental-based formal teaching sessions, which are scheduled and generally occur weekly. A variety of formats may be used, including a lecture format or a case-based format that starts with a clinical case presentation by a junior participant and concludes with discussion of the case by a faculty member and by the audience.
Lectures: A lecture is a didactic discourse presented to a class.
Laboratories: Laboratories are practical learning experiences in specially equipped facilities in which the student demonstrates appropriate skills.
Patient Care: Patient care is any curricular experience that includes direct patient contact and related clinical responsibilities. These responsibilities may include history and physical, writing orders, writing daily progress notes, and patient-related communications.
Preceptorship: Preceptorship is experiential learning in a physician's office or a clinic (away from a hospital setting), usually part of the clinical clerkship. Students sometimes live in the same community or commute daily to the community where the physician practices for the duration of the preceptorship. The preceptorship may be scheduled as a day each week in a physician's office, for an entire week, or for as long as two months.
Small Groups: Small groups are structured learning experiences for approximately 10-15 students in which there is student-faculty discussion of a specific topic.
Standardized Patients: Standardized patients are individuals trained to portray the history, physical findings, and affect of an actual patient.
Tutorials: A tutorial is a learning experience guided by a tutor or facilitator, where each student contributes to the process actively and learns by discovery (often used in conjunction with PBL methods.)
Ward Rounds: Ward rounds are a standard part of the weekly activities of the inpatient ward team. They are generally conducted by the assigned attending physician, with participation by the residents and medical students comprising the ward team. A variety of formats are used, including informal lectures by the attending, case presentations and discussion, and bedside rounds.
Course Assessment Methods
Educational Sites
Absolutely. Information in our database can be exported into any word processing or database format for your use. Please inform us of when you require the information, what information you would like exported and the format (Excel, Word, Access) in which you would like to receive the information.
The Curricular Affairs Office is responsible for coordinating the assessment of all courses and faculty members teaching courses. This activity will be coordinated individually with each course director to provide course directors with the opportunity to ask specific questions regarding their course on the assessment form.
The Offices for Medical Education has developed the Medical Education Resource and Longitudinal Information Network (MERLIN) system which will facilitate conducting longitudinal studies on medical education and the curriculum at the University of Rochester School of Medicine.
MERLIN includes information from all areas of the OME: Admissions, Registrar, Bursar, Financial Aid, Student Affairs, and Curricular Affairs.
The Curricular Affairs component of MERLIN:
The Curricular Affairs Office will work with Course Directors and Course Support Staff to obtain required information in a timely fashion. As a general guideline, course directors should provide course schedules to the CAO at least three months prior to the start of the semester in which their course will be conducted. This includes the titles of individual teaching sessions and the names of faculty teaching/tutoring these sessions.
The CAO will work with course directors to categorize and enter all course learning objectives immediately before or after a course, whichever is determined to be best by the course director.
Faculty responsible for each instructional session will list at least three learning objectives for the syllabus and when the syllabus is submitted, the course directors will indicate for CAO the macro-level learning objectives being met in each session.
Course Schedules
Contact Person: Mary Jane Dyer, Curricular Affairs Office, Box 601 (Telephone: 275-7202)
First Semester Courses: Please send a draft of your schedule to Mary Jane in June. A final draft will be distributed in July to be reviewed and returned by the end of July. Schedules will be distributed to the students at orientation in August.
Second Semester Courses: Please send a draft of your schedule to Mary Jane in early November with the final draft in by early December. Schedules will be distributed to the students before they leave for winter break.
End of Course: After your course has ended, please send any revisions of your schedule (e.g. faculty or lecture changes) to Mary Jane. This will assist in the faculty contribution report that is run at the end of the year. The faculty contribution report is used to assist with determining educational budgets for departments.
Note: Your schedules should also be sent to OER for room reservations.
Course Materials to be sent to the Curricular Affairs Office
Contact Person: Dina Tamoutselis, Curricular Affairs Office, Box 601
Course/Clerkship Materials required by Curricular Affairs: Dina collects the following course materials from each course administrator, so please make the required additional copies.
Courses:
Clerkships:
Assessment of Course/Clerkship
Contact Person: Dina Tamoutselis, Curricular Affairs Office, Box 601
All course/clerkship curriculum and faculty assessment is administered by Dina Tamoutselis in the Curricular Affairs Office (Box 601, 275-4577)
Assessment of Course/Clerkship continued
Years 1 and 2: Forms for student assessments of the 1st and 2nd year courses are completed on-line. A draft of the form will be sent to you mid-course for revisions. The forms will be activated for the students on the day of your final exam. Dina notifies the students.
If you would like assessment of weekly PBLs you can get the forms from Dina Tamoutselis (Box 601 275-4577.) The course administrator is responsible for distributing these forms and instructing students to return the forms to the Curricular Affairs Office.
Years 3 and 4: Forms for student assessment of the clerkships will be on-line. The clerkship director/administrator is responsible for e-mailing the students as they complete their rotation, directing them to the web site.
Faculty Development
Contact Person: The contact person for PBL tutor training, case writing, exam questions writing or other faculty development needs is Dr. Laurence Guttmacher (275-6580). Peg Downen is the support person for Faculty Development in the Curricular Affairs Office (Box 601, 275- 4521)
Standardized Patients
Contact Person: If you have a need for standardized patients, please contact Patti Hatchett (273-3289).