THE FIRST YEAR CURRICULUM COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
May 12, 2009: 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. in 133 MacNider
 Attendance: Stephen Chaney, Alan Cross, Bruce Alexander, Claudia Condrey, Joe Costello,
Georgette Dent, Ken Dudley, Kurt Gilliland, Michael Goy, Lara Handler, Deborah Ingersoll, Eve
Juliano, Ed Kernick, Erin Malloy, Nilsa Morales, Warren Newton, Ellen Roberts, Mindy Roush, Aldo
Rustioni, Gwen Sancar, Karen Stone, Julia West, Funto Abimola, Sophia Delpe
 Report on Lecture Capture
o Eve Juliano presented survey results from students and faculty on lecture capture.
o Dr. Goy’s course was the No. 1 course for viewing on lecture capture. It was viewed 7,081
times.
o A total of 638 lectures were recorded this past year.
o The cost to add lecture capture to other rooms within the School of Medicine would be
$13,000 per room. It is currently only available in MBRB.
o Eve Juliano said she is working to find a better mouse for the lecture capture system.
o Start and stop times can be adjusted for the system, but it would take an actual person
dedicated to do it.
o Lecture capture authorizations must be completed again next year.
 Audience Response System
o A new web-based system is being tested..
o Students will go to a URL (rather than using clickers).
o The cost is approximately $11,000.
 Report on effect of lecture capture on attendance
o Funto Abimola and Sophia Delpe gave a presentation outlining why some students do not
attend class.
o It was clear from the student responses that lecture capture has no effect on class
attendance but is considered helpful to students to reinforce the materials that they learned in
class.
o The students do not like lectures in MBRB because of its size and set-up.
o The students want more small group lectures.
o A recommendation was made to try G100 as a lecture class during the next academic year.
 Final Report of Integrative Cases Subcommittee
o Kurt Gilliland presented a motion from the Integrative Cases Subcommittee. The motion was
unanimously approved. The motion stated:
1. The subcommittee will coordinate with the course director of the Clinical Applications
Course (CAC) to ensure links between the MS1 block courses and the CAC. That
includes links both ways from block courses to CAC and vice versa. They can be
either content or physical linkages.
2. The subcommittee will continue to develop content about disease threads that recur
throughout MS1 block courses. The committee may include diseases in the
curriculum that may not occur within CAC if the committee feels they are multisystem
examples.
3. The subcommittee will continue to maintain documentation.
4. The subcommittee will meet as course directors at five times during the year: midSeptember, November, February, April and June. Dr. Gilliland offered to organize
these meetings and find representatives from the blocks to participate.
5. The subcommittee will communicate with the co-chairs of the CC1 and CC2
committees.
 Configuration of Small Group Rooms
1. Karen Stone heard from a few instructors as to what they need for small group
rooms: whiteboards, markers and electronic projection.
o Would be more efficient to purchase flat panel TV screens.
1. Faculty would need to bring their own laptops.
2. Rooms would be wired for laptop.
3. Students would have wireless access.
4. Rooms would need outlets for students to plug in laptops to save their batteries.
o There should be 12 small group rooms that can hold 20 people in MacNider and Bondurant.
o Flexible options for seating would be helpful.
 Step 1 Scores Committee
o Gwen Sancar reviewed the results of the last committee meeting. Six main themes came out
of that meeting:
1. The committee needs to determine whether it focuses on a relatively small group of
students who are underachievers or whether this problem is more widespread.
 Will review correlation between poor performance during a student’s CC1
and CC2 courses and poor performance on Step 1.
2. Should School of Medicine sponsor a Step 1 prep course?
3. The faculty, and particularly the course directors for CC1 and CC2, should provide
examinations that more closely resemble the USMLE-type questions.
 The questions would come at a rapid pace and be multi-layered.
 This would require faculty development for course directors on how to
prepare exam questions.
 Course directors should write or vet all exam questions.
 The faculty should have access to USMLE questions and have a subscription
to question banks either for students or for the course directors to use in their
exams.
 The SOM would need to start now in order to get faculty ready as it will be
time and labor intensive.
4. Course directors should be aware of how Step 1 content applies to their courses and
make it part of their course reviews.
5. The SOM should find and make year-round study space and create a Step 1 website
where administrators and students can post information and resources for the exam.
The SOM should provide an atmosphere that is conducive to effective preparation for
Step 1.
6. Some students have asked for more time at the end of year two for Step 1
preparation. Some students believe it is more important to learn how to take this type
of test than to increase the amount of time available to study.