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Indiana University School of Medicine
Indiana University School of Medicine
Medical Student Portal

Improved classes based on student feedback

The courses you take are important — not only for your knowledge as a medical professional but as a student trying to retain mass amounts of information.

We strive to make every class as efficient and relevant as possible. Using data from past surveys, we made the following improvements as part of our effort to make IU School of Medicine the best medical school in the country.

Two students with laptops sitting at a desk having a joyful conversation in class

Phase 1 Year 1

  • Updated biostats sessions to ensure greater content alignment and scaffolding.
  • Reviewed and/or updated all pre-recorded lectures based on feedback from students and faculty.
  • Revised learning sessions to reduce content redundancy.
  • Added additional Practice Quick check questions.

  • Revised course schedule — all required work is now listed on the schedule. In addition, students told us that the time allotted for gross anatomy lab sessions was too short, so it's been increased from 2 to 3 hours.
  • Revamped statewide pre-recorded lectures — all lectures were reviewed and/or revised based on student and faculty feedback and in accordance with MSE guidelines.
  • Revamped histology lab practice PowerPoints — now better aligned with lecture content and streamlined the practice of identifying histology structures.
  • Revised gross anatomy laboratory documents — changed the 'structures to know' lists and dissection instructions for Block 2.
  • New Introduction to Cadaveric Donors session — students will have an opportunity during Transitions 1 to learn more about the Anatomical Education Program and donors and consider the emotional aspects of cadaveric dissection.
  • New student-created, faculty/graduate student/medical student-curated, HS course-specific Anki Deck — we're excited to bring students this new customized HS-specific Anki deck!
  • New Gross Anatomy and Embryology Q Bank with over 500 practice questions — this will allow students to practice applying gross anatomy and embryology content!

  • Reorganization of content to evenly balance all three course blocks.
  • All lectures were reviewed and updated as needed.
  • Addition of precision medicine lecture.
  • Optional statewide weekly review sessions have been scheduled during course time from 1-2 p.m. ET.
  • Additional practice questions via Canvas quiz, statewide weekly reviews, and TrueLearn.

  • Assignments including reflections and modules simplified, reducing overall number of assignments.
  • Basic exam will be taught earlier to allow increased practice time for the physical exam. The fall OSCE will include an assessment of the basic exam.
  • Live, interactive feedback led by small group facilitators on H and P write-ups built into small group time.
  • Total number of PD sessions reduced but will remain required. Sessions will include time for in-person discussion with site leaders/local faculty. Opportunities for interaction with the speakers are built into the sessions using TopHat.
  • The first SP practice has been redesigned to include a video review to enhance clinical skills development.
  • Communication skills will be assessed using a validated tool known as the CARE measure during SP events.

  • Journal club assignments will have more self-graded quizzes to improve consistency in feedback for students.
  • Improvements to biostatistics.
  • The interactive large group session on biostatistics is now required.
  • New short videos on high-yield biostatistics concepts.
  • Organization of the Canvas site has been improved with new blocks to align with current definitions of health systems science domains.
  • All content has been redesigned to focus on health systems organization and function across three pillars of community, system, and evidence-based practice.
  • Redesigned research project.
  • Newly focused self-directed learning assignment to allow students to identify areas of interest and gaps in knowledge.
  • Additional self-graded quizzes to reinforce course content.
  • Reflection assignments have been decreased and revised to focus on health systems domains.

Phase 1 Year 2

  • Redesigned blood banking small group to an escape room format.
  • Realigned schedule to allow better preparation for small group sessions.
  • Added environmental impacts to cardiovascular diseases small group.
  • Modified session materials for easier viewing and downloading.
  • Re-recorded several lectures with improved audio for the 2024-2025 academic year.

  • Changed the way the course calendar is laid out to put all sessions — including pre-work — onto the schedule so they are visible.
  • Kept all pre-work videos to 30 minutes or fewer.
  • Reviewed all sessions that weren't re-recorded last year and re-recorded those that needed updating or had quality issues that Adobe couldn't address to our satisfaction.
  • Resolved the pronoun-mismatch issue with the Hypertension small group.
  • Recorded some new primer videos for PGR by Dr. Carlos, as requested by students.
  • Added an additional question to the SDL to help us assess the revised HEAL competency CLO in another way.
  • Developing another formative quiz with questions more similar in style to the NBME questions (longer more complicated stems that integrate CVH, etc.). This will prepare students for them so they don't come as a shock. This is to address the comments that the NBME seems to be out of sync with the course and more difficult. 

  • Moved ERMD to an earlier slot in the academic calendar.
  • Rearranged blocks to better accommodate scheduling and allow sufficient time for all topics.
  • Updated and rerecorded several lectures.

  • Added an introduction to a telehealth visit.
  • Created a three-week longitudinal case highlighting SOAP notes, electronic health records and discharge planning.

  • Made journal club assignment improvements to increase health systems science topics.
  • Provided wrap-ups for each journal club, which will be highlighted in course announcements after every campus has completed small group sessions.
  • Worked to better align journal club content with other courses, such as FCP 2.
  • Reduced the number of discussion boards to one.
  • Incorporated more self-graded quizzes in journal club assignments to improve consistency in feedback for students.