Integration in education is a strategy that unites subjects often taught separately. Examples of integrated curricula have increased in medical education, yet some argue that creating an integrated curriculum does not necessarily establish cognitive integration. For instance, integration practices may fail at the course and session level when basic sciences are taught asynchronously from the clinical sciences. Enhanced integration can promote long-term retention when learning is organized in a way that mimics the way knowledge will be recalled during clinical practice. Team teaching enhances integration and promotes organization of foundational knowledge for clinical practice by drawing on two or more disciplines to apply mechanisms in the context of clinical scenarios. Additionally, team teaching can decrease the extraneous cognitive load, imposed on the learner when they are required to integrate content outside of class. As a result, team teaching increases the germane cognitive load, thereby enabling the learner to devote their cognitive resources to applying the content schema within a session to new clinical problems, rather than attempting to construct de novo relationships during independent study. In this focus session, participants will utilize a rubric to analyze integration at the session level and design a team teaching plan for use at their home institution.
 

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