Educator-to-Educator Tips & Strategies
Find out how your peers are making the most of Aquifer cases and teaching tools.
Teaching Perspectives & Pearls Blog
Blog Tag: active learning strategies
Start Small: Six Activities to Get Started Integrating Basic Science and Clinical Learning
November 17, 2021 | Integrating Basic Science
WISE-OnCall is used by programs across medical and health professions education to help learners diagnose and manage clinical situations they are likely to encounter on clinical clerkships, advanced sub-internships, and during the transition to residency or practice. Here are some successful integration strategies that we’ve heard from faculty users…
Learning Resources to Use as COVID Surges
August 17, 2021 | Exploring Our Content
Programs are reporting that they expect their students and faculty will continue to be impacted by rising coronavirus infections through the spring. Students may become ill, be exposed, and have quarantine or their courses change due to the availability of clinical training sites. Faculty will continue to face the challenges of instructors who are pulled away from teaching, clinical sites that have to temporarily shift away from teaching, and disrupted student schedules. Aquifer has tools to help mitigate some of these disruptions and keep your students learning.
4 Ways to Use Aquifer High Value Care Across Your Curriculum
June 14, 2021 | Clinical Skills, Exploring Our Content
Aquifer High Value Care, a free course available to all … Read more
Using Integrated Illness Scripts: Three Integration Stories
May 27, 2021 | Integrating Basic Science
WISE-OnCall is used by programs across medical and health professions education to help learners diagnose and manage clinical situations they are likely to encounter on clinical clerkships, advanced sub-internships, and during the transition to residency or practice. Here are some successful integration strategies that we’ve heard from faculty users…
Building on Basic Science: Integrated Illness Scripts as a Foundational Boundary-Crossing Curricular Tool
April 13, 2021 | Integrating Basic Science
WISE-OnCall is used by programs across medical and health professions education to help learners diagnose and manage clinical situations they are likely to encounter on clinical clerkships, advanced sub-internships, and during the transition to residency or practice. Here are some successful integration strategies that we’ve heard from faculty users…
6 Ways to Use WISE-OnCall to Prepare Your Students for Clinical Responsibilities
March 29, 2021 | Exploring Our Content
WISE-OnCall is used by programs across medical and health professions education to help learners diagnose and manage clinical situations they are likely to encounter on clinical clerkships, advanced sub-internships, and during the transition to residency or practice. Here are some successful integration strategies that we’ve heard from faculty users…
7 Tools for Flipping Your Classroom with Aquifer
March 1, 2021 | Didactic Sessions
Whether you’re searching for ways to engage students in virtual learning, revamping a stale lecture, or building a new didactic session, flipping the classroom around Aquifer cases is a powerful way to engage your students and help case-based learning stick. Check out different ways that medical educators are integrating Aquifer cases into their pedagogy…
Case Analysis Tool: Feedback for Developing Clinical Reasoning Skills
February 17, 2021 | Assessment
In our 12-week pediatrics course for first-year PA students, we use Aquifer cases as a framework for four of our eight didactic sessions. Each Aquifer session includes an in-class lecture that covers the “don’t miss” diagnoses and difficult concepts for the topic area, followed by the students completing the related Aquifer case and the Aquifer Case Analysis Tool worksheet independently.
5 Ways to Use Aquifer Radiology
February 3, 2021 | Exploring Our Content
The 19 cases in Aquifer Radiology are designed to meet the needs of a wide range of learners and fit into many teaching modalities. Top radiology educators presented their successful strategies for integrating the cases in our recent webinar–find out what they shared…
5 Ways to Use Aquifer Geriatrics
January 4, 2021 | Exploring Our Content
The 27 cases in Aquifer Geriatrics are designed to meet the needs of a wide range of learners and fit into many teaching modalities. Top geriatrics educators from around the country presented their successful strategies for integrating the cases in our recent webinar–find out what they shared…
Teaching About Diagnostic Error: Tools for Creating Space in a Crowded Curriculum
December 14, 2020 | Curriculum Planning, Exploring Our Content
Diagnostic errors are a major source of morbidity and mortality in health care, and there is increasing focus on reducing diagnostic errors in medicine. Fitting these topics into your curriculum can be challenging. To help, I’d like to highlight strategies that educators have found successful using the cases and teaching tools included in Aquifer Diagnostic Excellence.
Lessons Learned from COVID: Trends & Teaching Strategies
November 30, 2020 | Successful Strategies
As the pandemic caused widespread disruption, Aquifer saw an unprecedented jump in the use of our cases–and many innovative ways to use the cases across curricula. Through our grant applications and many ongoing conversations with educators, we were able to identify trends and challenges and gather success stories and strategies to share.
Redesigning Didactics for Gen Z: Engaging Students Around Principles of Geriatrics
November 16, 2020 | Didactic Sessions
As part of my fellowship research project, I rebuilt a didactic session in our Geriatrics rotation using the flipped classroom model, an Aquifer Geriatrics case, and a range of teaching techniques to create an engaging, student-centered session.
Creating Advanced Compare and Contrast Learning with Aquifer Case Modifications
August 12, 2020 | Clinical Skills
In our Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship, students transitioned patient-based clinical learning from real patient to Aquifer cases in late March. These more advanced level clerks required that virtual cases have increased complexity to adequately challenge them and continue building their clinical skills. In order to meet these learning demands, Aquifer cases were introduced as written and then modified in preceptor lead discussions to encourage further clinical reasoning skill development.
Student Perspectives: Practical Tips for Assigning Cases
June 24, 2020 | Student Perspectives, Successful Strategies
Students provide consistently high rankings for Aquifer as reported in our five-star rating feedback data, but how and when cases are integrated into the curriculum can have a significant impact on their learning. Find out what themes emerged when we ask students what methods are most effective–and discover practical tips for assigning Aquifer cases based on student feedback.
Making Connections Throughout the Curriculum
June 10, 2020 | Curriculum Planning
We have integrated Aquifer Geriatrics cases in several different ways throughout our Geriatrics and Healthy Aging Curriculum thread. First-year students have a modified team-based learning session around the Dementia case. In the third year, cases prepare students for oral presentations on rounds…
Adapting to a Shortened Virtual Clerkship
May 12, 2020 | Clinical Skills
Like many others, Boston University moved to a shortened virtual-only clerkship (packed with the full knowledge of our regular in-person 6-week clerkship, of course) in March of 2020. We were able to leverage Aquifer cases as a framework for preceptor discussion sessions and learning activities. The plan outlined below was for our 2-week virtual pediatrics clerkship, but I think the framework could apply to a variety of clerkships or courses transitioning to virtual group discussions.
Strategies for Flipping the Classroom with Aquifer
May 11, 2020 | Didactic Sessions
Aquifer cases can form the basis for a huge variety of classroom sessions that can be easily adapted for virtual learning. Here are some ideas to spark your creativity if you are designing your own activity. Suggested strategies include…
Reframe: Aquifer Cases as Virtual Standardized Patients
April 23, 2020 | Getting Started
Many educators are wondering how to meaningfully engage their students in distance learning activities that create community and allow them to practice important patient care skills (while not seeing patients). While I have been doing peer-to-peer consults with educators around the country about using Aquifer cases in their curriculum, I stumbled into a helpful reframe that seems to be unlocking people’s creativity: Aquifer cases (yep…more than 170 of them!) are virtual standardized patients. Wait…what?
