Tao Le
University of Louisville

Historically, high-quality health professions education has been expensive to develop and usually limited to selected authors working with publishers in wealthy countries. New digital platforms and the ongoing pandemic has democratized the development of shared open education resources (OER) which evolved to address critical cost and accessibility issues in education globally. UNESCO has identified OER as a priority for accessible, sustainable education and developed guidelines and policies supporting OER development at the country and institutional levels. There are opportunities to empower a global community of health professions educators to collaborate on and freely disseminate OER through shared digital curricular platforms and tools, especially in low-middle income countries (LMICs). We detail shared online medical education efforts in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Columbia. These various initiatives highlight the significant planning and coordination required among multiple like-minded stakeholder groups including medical school consortia, student leadership, NGOs, governmental ministries, foundations and philanthropy.

Valerie DeLeon
College of Medicine, University of Houston

Educational modalities, technologies, and student learning preferences are changing rapidly in medical education, requiring faculty to adapt or risk losing the engagement of their students. Faculty-student collaborations offer a unique opportunity to create learning experiences that leverage latest technologies and receive high acceptance by students. Anki has become a popular study tool with medical students over the past decade. It is a digital software platform that uses spaced-repetition algorithms and allows users to actively recall concepts with flashcards that contain questions, tables, and diagrams. A common complaint by students, however, is that Anki decks either cover broad areas not specific to a local curriculum or that student-created cards may contain factual errors. Here, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of course-specific Anki decks that were created by students, vetted by faculty, and integrated into a basic science preclerkship course. We also discuss practical advice on how other medical educators can implement a similar approach in their medical science courses. A total of 93.3 % (26 out of 30) of students reported using the course-provided questions for their studying during the course. Of those, 91.7% (22/24) either "agreed" or "strongly agreed" with the statement that using the question decks was useful for final exam preparation. Of those who used the questions during this course, 79.1% (19/24) either "agreed" or "strongly agreed" with the statement that they would use the similar question decks in future organ-system courses. Student engagement with the course specific Anki decks was very high, reflecting the value that students placed on the expected learning benefits. The majority of students who used the decks found that they helped in their final exam performance and that they would likely use similar decks in the future. This project shows the value of co-creating learning opportunities together with medical students to help select novel technologies and approaches, as well as ensuring high student acceptance and engagement.

Christine Kauffman
University of Central Florida College of Medicine

Many medical schools needed to flip to entirely online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Will the correlation of attendance to performance change when the attendance is virtual instead of in-person? Research on in-person attendance and performance during pre-clinical basic science courses has mixed results. It generally suggests that in-person attendance does not correlate with performance when all of the materials are available outside the classroom. The second-year (M2) pathophysiology and pharmacology systems modules at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine were entirely on-line for academic year 2020/21. Sessions were divided into either asynchronous, voluntary synchronous or mandatory synchronous. The voluntary synchronous sessions were recorded and available to all students after the sessions were complete. Students in the Class of 2023 were already enrolled in a 3-year longitudinal study on attendance and performance at the time that the pandemic began. Students' (n=83/120) attendance at the voluntary synchronous sessions (in Zoom minutes) was gathered across the entire academic year and correlated with the performance on the final MCQ examination within each course. There was a moderate correlation between in-person attendance during the M1 year and total virtual attendance in the M2 year (rs: = .542, p<0.001). For each of the five M2 modules, there was no significant correlation between voluntary synchronous attendance and performance on the final examinations (p-value ranged 0.098 - 0.732). Attendance, whether in-person or online, does not reliably predict performance on knowledge-based MCQ examinations in pre-clinical medical students. This suggests the need to refocus in-person/synchronous sessions onto competencies other than medical knowledge.

Shino Kuriakose
New York Institute of Technology

COVID-19 has profoundly affected life worldwide, and it greatly affected physician assistant (PA) education programs when the virus spread across the New York region 2 years ago. PA programs at Stony Brook University, Hofstra University, and the New York Institute of Technology were at the epicenter of the pandemic and were forced to transition to online learning during the spring of 2020. The purpose of this study was to explore didactic PA students' perceptions of virtual learning, their mental health status, and the challenges and unexpected benefits they have faced during this historic time. A consent form that linked to an 11-question electronic Qualtrics survey was emailed to all didactic students enrolled in the 3 participating PA programs. The survey data were used to conduct a descriptive analysis and a Spearman's Ï correlation analysis using SPSS 24 software. The survey response rate was 39% (89/229). The students perceived it to be more challenging to maintain the same level of academic achievement with virtual learning, although they felt they were able to meet learning objectives and be prepared for clinical clerkships. They reported experiencing more significant stress, anxiety, and depression related to decreased socialization and isolation. The students said that their PA program provided enough support to assist with student needs, and they noted unexpected benefits of remote learning, including more time to spend with family members, increased schedule flexibility, and lower commuting costs. The PA students' education and mental health were negatively affected because of the abrupt transition from in-person to virtual learning. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the students in the 3 participating PA programs in New York were affected by the change to remote learning and the subsequent lack of socialization. PA students experienced both challenges and benefits during this unscheduled virtual learning period. While students noted increases in mental health issues, they felt supported by faculty members and prepared to start clinical rotations.

David Mullins
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College

Objective: Content curation is a necessary skill for success. Traditional teaching approaches have been poorly received, indicating a need for new teaching methods. We have developed a learning activity to enhance the application of content curation, as well as comminication skills, in the undergraduate medical curriculum.

Introduction: Content curation is the process of gathering information pertaining to a topic, then adding value through directed selection, organization, and communication. Content curation is particularly relevant to medical education, where students are exposed to an ever-expanding universe of often-extraneous information, in an environment that increasingly uses self-directed and/or remote learning.

Methods: In a year-one immunology/infectious diseases course, teams of five students were assigned foundational topics (diseases and their causative agents) and tasked to curate information into a single-page patient-oriented infographics that contained validated information on biological characteristics, epidemiology, diagnostics, treatments, and ethical considerations. Students documented their search strategies of primary scientific literature, verified content for accuracy, and cited references. Infographics were subjected to review and presented in a 3-minute "elevator pitch."

Results: The activity exposed students to the variety of information sources and allowed them to develop skills in content curation. Through rubric-based feedback, students assessed their success. Students also developed skills in creating novel communication devices that facilitated rapid and concise communication. All students reported that the activity enhanced their appreciation of content curation as a means of student-directed learning and provided a practical experience in content selection and communication in an enjoyable activity; students also indicated that their knowledge and application of the foundational content was enhanced. We will expand this approach to additional courses and evaluate its impact on the learning and longitudinal application of knowledge. Potential Strengths: 1) Engages student interest and a meta-cognitive appreciation of content curation 2) Encouraging team building and peer-learning 3) Products can be shared as aids for Step-1 Potential Limitations: 1) May require information technology support

Conclusion: In the initial offering, students feedback was unanimously positive. Many students commented that the activity was effective, highly useful, and "fun." We posit that students gained skills in content selection and curation, as well as communication, that will enable better life-long learning.

Feasibility: The learning method can be easily adopted by any institution and for a variety of content areas.

Fatma Alzahraa Elkhamisy
King Salman International University, Faculty of Medicine; & Helwan University, Faculty of Medicine

Turning traditional learning into student-centered has many documented learning advantages including deeper understanding, longer attention span, breakdown of learning boredom, development of the affective domain, training higher-order cognitive functions, higher motivation, better class attendance & engagement, and better academic performance. Didactic lectures are teacher-centered and usually have loads of theoretical scientific information, which hinders students' engagement. Using innovative student-centered approaches in traditional lectures boosts students' motivation, engagement, and learning gains. What the presentation offers: A lightening talk about five feasible tools and strategies that boost students' engagement and turn their learning into a collaborative student-centered one. The tools are attainable to use even in large enrollment classes according to the presenter's experience. Methods to be presented: Memes, Escape rooms, Role plays, Kahoot!, and Learning stations/virtual learning stations. Summary of the instructional tools/strategies: 1. Memes: Humorous pictures that can be used in either way: memes on scientific material are selected & displayed by the instructor for students teams to reflect on collaboratively. Or by asking students to design some memes reflecting on the scientific material they studied. 2. Escape Rooms: This can be face-to-face or online, using part of or the whole lecture session. The basic idea is like the escape room game. Students are asked to find and solve a certain number of hidden clues asking about scientific material, to be able to get out of the room (face-to-face or virtual) class. It mixes work (studying) with fun & is a form of game-based learning. 3. Role plays: a doctor-patient role-play done by the instructor and students or student/student in the lecture context, just after teaching the topic and asking students to guess the disease/reflect on the case. It can also be used in a flipped classroom context. 4. Kahoot! game-based quiz platform: A digital platform that enables the instructor to create challenging game-based quizzes for students and play them synchronously to determine who are the champions of this challenge. Can be used in class or in distance learning. 5. Learning stations: Transforming the traditional lecture into multiple stations that students should pass on, consecutively and work in teams. Each station has part of the learning material of the lecture and a task to apply. Stations are complementary to each other; by finishing them, students have completed the lecture. It is a student-centered strategy. Effect on students' learning: Enhanced students' satisfaction and engagement with their learning, and better academic performance.