University Letter

UND's faculty and staff newsletter

Oct. 4: Competency-Based Assessment: Using Behavioral Observation

The Evidence-Based Teaching Group will meet Thursday, Oct. 4, from 11 a.m. to noon in W201, School of Medicine & Health Sciences Building. You are invited to attend.

The meeting topic is: Competency-Based Assessment: Using Behavioral Observation Forms to Measure the Development of Student Competency Over Time. It will be led by Richard Van Eck, Education Resources, School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

The medical curriculum at the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences (UND SMHS) recently adopted new competency-based program goals, including some focused on lifelong self-directed learning skills, professionalism, and personal and professional development. Because competencies like these are attained incrementally over time and are reflected behavior choices rather than recall of factual information, they cannot be taught or assessed using traditional teaching (e.g., lecture) or testing (e.g., multiple-choice tests). One way the UND SMHS curriculum promotes these outcomes is through our patient-centered learning (PCL): a form of problem-based learning that occurs over the course of the first two years of the curriculum. We developed and piloted an observational form to measure these competencies.

This session will provide an overview of the problem, solution, and results, and we’ll discuss how this approach can be extended to other programs, content, and competencies.

The Evidence-Based Teaching Group (EBTG) hosts events based on topics determined by the expressed interests of its members. The EBTG meets the first Tuesday of every month in W201 or W202 and meetings are free and open to anyone—no RSVP needed. Past topics have included assessment, online learning, precepting, active learning, simulation, ADA compliance, educational scholarship, to name a few. Many of the past events can be streamed from our website, linked below.

If you are interested in anything related to evidence-based teaching, join us! If you have any questions, would like more information, or would like to suggest (or lead!) a future meeting topic, please contact Adrienne Salentiny at adrienne.salentiny@med.und.edu.

Hope to see you there. https://med.und.edu/education-resources/evidence-teaching-group.html