B-CLR

Twitter is on online micro-blogging and social networking tool that allow users share a wide variety of information with an online community of networked users using 140 characters or less. By using a Twitter account, a user can post comments (or "tweets") and share these with their friends ("followers") on topics they care about.

Twitter launched in 2006 and has been gaining ground as one of the fastest growing social media sites as the community of Twitterers continues to grow. In medical education, Twitter is not just being used by individuals sharing information about themselves and what they are doing, but is also used by medical schools, hospitals, medical libraries, medical journals, and by faculty members and students.

See OMERAD's Twitter page online

Twitter is mobile too and all of the Twitter functions are available through SMS (Short Message Service). If you provide Twitter with a cell phone number or IM contact information, you can "follow" individual users, even if you are not friends with them. By choosing to follow a user, you will be notified by phone, IM, or both any time that person posts a new tweet. 

Using Twitter

Twitter can be used to share announcements, gathering/sharing resources (locally and globally), promoting activities, sharing employment opportunities, and professional networking.

This image shows how  the AAMC uses Twitter to share a  link with their followers about  the new MCAT examination

In 1989, the College of Human Medicine initiated a longitudinal follow-up study of graduates in an effort to: (a) assess the strengths and weaknesses that CHM graduates demonstrate in their residency training; (b) elicit graduates' evaluation of the adequacy of their CHM education; and (c) obtain career information about CHM graduates.   As part of this process, each year graduates from two years prior are asked to complete a questionnaire: in 2011, the graduates of 2009 were surveyed.   In the final section of the survey respondents are invited to list the single greatest strength and single greatest weakness of both the CHM preclinical curriculum and the clinical curriculum. All of the responses are transcribed and content analyzed. The following themes were mentioned by two or more graduates. The number in parentheses indicates the number of years a theme has been on the list.

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Once again this year, PBL appeared as a major strength and major weakness of the preclinical curriculum. Only a few respondents indicated that they did not like PBL as an instructional model; often their complaints were related to the lack of consistency in the small groups. Generally the quality of the curriculum and instruction are a continuing strength. The use of prosection in anatomy, and lack of structured board preparation programs continue as perceived weaknesses. The word clouds below show the relative frequency of each theme: those mentioned by more respondents are shown in a larger font.

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The quality of the community-based clinical education, including the faculty and residents who teach our students, remains a strength recognized by our graduates. The community-based model provides a rich educational experience in a supportive environment. Graduates report the elective experiences, variability of core competencies, length of the psychiatry clerkship and lack of a neurology clerkship as continuing weaknesses.  

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Do students have trouble following or understanding your lecture? Do you worry you might be leaving important information out? There are ways to provide students information about the structure of your lecture that will facilitate their learning from it. 

Begin your lecture with these five slides: Objectives, Overview, Motivation, Prerequisites, and Agenda.

Objectives

Objectives describe what you expect your students to learn from your lecture. They are like a roadmap to people who are expected to arrive at a specific destination. Here is an example of an objective for a Health Policy course:

Objective: State how these three ideas about

health policy affect clinical practice:

1) high quality medicine, 2) rationing, and 3) cost control.

Notice that the way the objective is written looks an awful lot like a test item. In fact, objectives should describe the test. Each lecture will most likely have several objectives, but only one goal. Goals are more general than objectives, and describe the lecture as a whole. Here is the goal that might go with the objective described above:

Goal: Today you will learn how health

policy affects clinical practice.

Listing the objectives helps students know what they should get out of the lecture. The objectives slide goes just after the title slide or the motivation slide (see below).

Overview

An overview of the lecture content lists the main ideas to be presented. Here is an example of an overview for a Health Policy course:

            Overview: Access to Health Care, Paying for

Health Care, Quality of Health Care

An overview helps students follow the lecture by providing a scaffold on which the lecture is built. Select only the main ideas so students can remember them. Do not overburden them with a long list or outline of ideas. Put the outline in the course pack instead of in your slides.

Motivation

Motivation describes to students why they might want to learn the information in your lecture, or the impact the lecture material might have on them individually. Here is an example of a motivation slide:

Motivation: You will be in clinical practice in a few years.

Here is how the changes in health policy might affect you.

Make the motivation something real life, something immediate or soon. You might put the motivation slide right after the objectives slide, or even right after the title slide.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites describe the knowledge learners are expected to have before the lecture begins. An example of prerequisites for a course could be the knowledge learned in a previous course. Check that learners already know the concepts and terms you expect them to know, and briefly explain them if learners do not know them. This slide should come before the lecture proper.

Agenda

An agenda lists the order of events in the lecture. Here is an example of an agenda:

Agenda: Today I will explain xxx.

During this time I will present three cases and

ask you to identify the best solution.

You may also want to indicate how long each event is expected to take. Providing an agenda gives students more of a feeling of being in control because they know what comes next.

Use OOMPA as a mnemonic to help you remember these five slides. Giving OOMPA information at the beginning of your lecture will enable students to follow it more easily and will give you more peace of mind.