Changing the Culture around Program Evaluation at the MD Program
The MD Program Office of Assessment & Evaluation (OAE) has been committed to working with stakeholders from MedSoc, course directors, and MD Program leadership to develop and implement several initiatives in the 2020-2021 academic year. The goal of these initiatives was to elevate the culture of Program Evaluation at the MD program by highlighting the important role that student feedback plays in our continuous refinement processes. We would like to feature some of the main initiatives:
Based on student feedback, we made improvements to the MedSIS student evaluation dashboard which included making it the landing page upon logging into MedSIS. We now also list the learning format and teacher associated with each learning activity so it is easier for students to know what form to complete. Last, we have reduced the number of evaluations for ease of completion.
Evaluation completion rates are now part of the student driven Academy Challenge. Each completed MedSIS evaluation is contributing positively towards the academies overall points, with MedSIS evaluation points being worth more than other challenge components. All students from the winning academy will receive a gift card from the OAE, MD Program.
The OAE worked with Clerkship student leadership to develop a survey which is available for the entire year on Qualtrics, allowing students to feedback at any point during their rotations without having to wait until the end of a course. This allows the MD Program to closely monitor the student experience to make sure it is up to our standards of excellence. Feedback is collected and shared with the course directors in a timely manner.
Foundations course directors are now provided with evaluation completion rate percentages every two weeks to allow for timely reminders to be sent to students if numbers were low. Course directors also produced an array of innovative testimonial videos in collaboration with other faculty members to share the importance of completing the evaluations and articulate how evaluation data can help drive change in teaching practices.
In the upcoming academic year, the OAE is excited to launch the Program Evaluation webpage! The webpage will offer material to clarify the role of evaluations in the MD Program, what happens with your evaluations once they are submitted, who reviews the data, how we ensure students confidentiality at all times, and guidelines around constructive feedback to teachers. The Program Evaluation webpage will also promote evaluation bulletins that will highlight how the evaluation data is being used at the MD Program to drive change.
The OAE would like to thank all the stakeholders who have contributed to these initiatives and look forward to a productive 2021-2022 academic year. If you have any questions about any of these initiatives or have any suggestions to help change the culture around evaluation, please send a message to md.oae@utoronto.ca.
