{"id":121674,"date":"2024-05-24T12:46:45","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T16:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/?p=121674"},"modified":"2024-05-25T19:07:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-25T23:07:30","slug":"19th-annual-john-mccahan-medical-campus-education-conference-highlights-collaborative-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2024\/05\/24\/19th-annual-john-mccahan-medical-campus-education-conference-highlights-collaborative-education\/","title":{"rendered":"19th Annual John McCahan Medical Campus Education Conference Highlights Collaborative Education"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Three
Medical student Lindsey Claus explaining the project she worked on which won Best Student Abstract award<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On May 23, students, faculty, staff, residents and fellows from across the Medical Campus gathered in Hiebert Lounge, and online, for the 19th<\/sup> annual John McCahan Medical Campus Education Conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe importance of educational research and the role of educators continues to grow, and we recognize how important it is to continue to develop and study the most effective way to educate our students,\u201d said Hee-Young Park<\/a>, PhD, professor and chair of medical sciences & education and associate dean for faculty affairs, in her welcoming address to approximately 50 in person attendees and another 25 online.<\/p>\n

Named for John McCahan, MD, who served for 30 years as the school\u2019s associate dean for academic affairs and interim medical school dean, the conference focus on collaborative education was highlighted in a keynote address by Binyomin Abrams<\/a>, PhD, on the \u201cEvolution of a Student-Driven Collaborative Research Project to Address Equity in STEM Participation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Keynote speaker Binyomin Abrams, PhD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe have to look at the learner and see what assets they bring, but at the same time, we also have to look at the circumstances behind how they\u2019ve grown up cognitively,\u201d said Abrams, a research associate professor in chemistry and director of the College of Arts & Sciences Program in Science Education. He is a recipient of the Metcalf Award<\/a> for Excellence in Teaching, the university\u2019s highest teaching honor, and the Templeton Prize for Excellence in Student Advising.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can either make chemistry hard and fun or hard and boring,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be hard for most students, but at least we can try to make it hard and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout Abrams\u2019s teaching career, he\u2019s looked for ways to engage students, tasking them to work on solutions to overcome barriers to learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a student comes to you to complain, or bemoan a certain truth, say \u2018Great! How about you and I fix that? How about we try to change things?\u201d said Abrams. He formed the award-winning Abrams Research Group, with student-driven research focused on \u201cdeveloping novel approaches to teaching introductory chemistry that excite students across disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n

One pivotal event in Abrams\u2019s teaching career occurred at a 2018 meeting when faculty said students were not retaining a basic concept known as Lewis structures that illustrate the bonds between a molecule and electrons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI vividly remembered teaching it,\u201d recalled Abrams. \u201cThe issue was that students were getting to organic chemistry and it\u2019s as if they had learned nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

That one meeting spawned six years of research projects that included students as researchers looking at various ways to deliver and retain knowledge.<\/p>\n

They found that traditional chemistry lectures weren\u2019t working and that students retained more if they viewed videos, at their own pace outside the classroom, with students required to pause and answer questions embedded in the videos.<\/p>\n

Working with BU\u2019s Educational Resource Center<\/a>, a free service to help students navigate academics, chemistry education teams created OrgoPrep, a six-week award-winning summer program to prepare students for organic chemistry using question embedded videos and peer mentors.<\/p>\n

Subsequent assessments found that students participating in OrgoPrep were 98% more confident entering organic chemistry, 75% less anxious and three times less likely to have a negative outcome. That also was largely true for students from historically marginalized groups, like underrepresented minorities and low-income students, said Abrams.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, giving students an opportunity to increase their confidence, their self-advocacy, decrease nervousness and anxiety has downstream effects. It can really transform student lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Assistant
Jacqueline Hicks, PhD, (right) clinical associate professor of biostatistics, receives the School of Public Health Educational Innovation Award from SPH Assistant Dean Amanda Velez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Conference attendees chose from five workshops this year:<\/p>\n