Aquifer PracticeSmart: Faculty & Administrator FAQs

PracticeSmart is a flexible student tool for self-assessment that supports self-directed learning and extends student learning beyond Aquifer cases. Students can access PracticeSmart questions at the end of a case to check their knowledge or use the Quiz Generator to create a focused study experience and prioritize their learning.

Depending on their program’s subscription and available content, students can use the Quiz Generator to:

• Complete a PracticeSmart Essentials quiz: Select an educator-curated, comprehensive quiz organized around a major clinical discipline.
• Create a quiz from a course or assignment: Practice with questions connected to cases included in one or more Aquifer courses.
• Create a custom quiz: Select filters such as discipline, topic, clinical focus, previous performance, and case completion status.
• Create a quiz from the To-Do List: Combine questions connected to one or more cases, assignments, or other items saved to a To-Do List.

PracticeSmart questions are multiple-choice and include a certainty rating. Students may complete questions in Study Mode, where they review the answer and explanation after each question, or Quiz Mode, where they review their results after completing the quiz.

Each PracticeSmart question is linked to an Aquifer case and designed to assess student understanding of key teaching points within that case. After completing a quiz, students can review their results and use related cases, teaching points, answer explanations, and flagged questions to follow up on knowledge gaps in full clinical context.

The new PracticeSmart Essentials strengthens this connection by providing students with a clearer learning pathway after a quiz. Related Aquifer cases are surfaced to help students reinforce weaker areas and create a more focused study plan connected to clinical reasoning development.

No, PracticeSmart is just for students. You can view all of the questions and answer explanations from the "Questions" button that appears on your case lists (in the Content Library and in your courses), and at the end of each case.

Can I access PracticeSmart Results?

Yes - at the cohort and school level. Faculty and administrative users have access to detailed PracticeSmart reports in the “Reports” section of the platform that provide rich information on student performance to inform curricular planning–all with links to the related cases to address any gaps. 

PracticeSmart results for individual students are not available to provide a safe space for learning.

PracticeSmart questions are always clinically-focused, just like what students will be asked on rounds. PracticeSmart, like all of Aquifer, is designed to improve clinical decision-making skills.

PracticeSmart provides a safe space for student learning that can help identify gaps in knowledge.

PracticeSmart aligns accuracy and certainty to identify true knowledge gaps. Students can discover what they truly know, or if they just had a lucky guess, and understand key areas where knowledge and certainty are misaligned.

PracticeSmart provides granular feedback that helps students focus study time and prioritize cases most meaningful to learning based on current strengths and weaknesses with completely customizable quizzes.

PracticeSmart empowers students to take control of their learning within Aquifer's trusted, clinically-focused learning system.

• Student-friendly format:
  PracticeSmart questions are multiple-choice and provide immediate access to answers and answer explanations along with links to related cases.
• Self-directed learning:
  PracticeSmart provides powerful tools for students to drive their own clinical learning by identifying gaps and finding the content they need to build that knowledge. Used in conjunction with the Patient Library and Calibrate, PracticeSmart becomes even more powerful.
• Practice aligned with course content:
  A course- or assignment-based quiz allows students to review questions connected to cases included in their Aquifer courses. This can support a pre-test, general knowledge check, or review of course content. 
• Links to trusted cases with full clinical context: 
  Each PracticeSmart question links to an Aquifer case that covers the related content, providing students with not just a short answer explanation, but a full patient encounter to fully understand key concepts and clinical skills.
• Written and maintained by experts:
  Questions and answer explanations are written and maintained by the same leading health professions educators who work on Aquifer's trusted cases.
• Individualized, customizable learning paths: 
  The PracticeSmart Quiz Generator gives the students the ability to create highly customized quizzes to tailor their learning to meet individual plans for learning and remediation.
• Cohort-level curricular insight:
  PracticeSmart reporting gives faculty and administrators visibility into cohort-level patterns while protecting each student’s private formative learning experience. 

• Links to trusted cases for deep learning in clinical context: 
  Because every PracticeSmart question is directly linked to an Aquifer case, students know where to look to advance learning in the context of a realistic patient encounter.
• The certainty rating: 
  PracticeSmart goes beyond right and wrong answers to help identify real knowledge gaps by calibrating knowledge and certainty.
• Focus on clinical reasoning: 
  PracticeSmart questions are not just quizzing students on medical trivia, they are designed to focus on developing the clinical reasoning skills students need to take great care of their patients.

With PracticeSmart, the Patient Library, and Calibrate, Aquifer's clinical learning system now includes many powerful tools for self-directed learning. We recommend adjusting your case assignments to allow students space to select their own cases and focus time on their individual knowledge gaps or interests.

For example, you could combine specific case assignments with the freedom to select their own content:

• Assign specific required cases (ie. You must complete Pediatrics 1, 3, 4, 6, 9.)
• Assign a certain number of "Student-Choice" cases to complete that the student selects on their own. (ie. You must complete an additional 8 cases of your choosing based on your PracticeSmart or Calibrate results, or the patients you are seeing in clinic.) To learn more about the option for Student-Choice Cases, see "Building Courses."

Encourage your students to take full advantage of PracticeSmart quizzes! They already have access within your subscription. PracticeSmart is super flexible–students can use it in the following ways:

• Begin with a PracticeSmart Essentials quiz
  Students can select an educator-curated Essentials quiz when they want a structured, comprehensive knowledge check within a discipline or clinical area.
  
  After completing the quiz, encourage students to review:
  • Their overall performance.
  • Questions they answered incorrectly.
  • Areas where their accuracy and certainty were misaligned.
  • Recommended or related Aquifer cases.
  • Topics that may need additional practice.
• Check knowledge after a case with spaced learning:
  At the end of the case, students can complete the quiz on the spot, or leverage spaced learning and save the quiz to their To-do list and pick a date to complete later.
• Customize a quiz to target focus areas:
  Notice that your students are weak on cardiology? Does your cohort, or an individual student, need to brush up on diagnosing respiratory conditions? Encourage them to use the filters in the Quiz Generator to find the questions they need and then follow up with the related cases.
• Prioritize case load or assignments: 
  Students can use the Quiz Generator to create their own pre-test or review the questions for their assigned cases in advance to help them understand the highest yield cases to focus on or prioritize in their learning.
• Prep for exams: 
  Use the Quiz Generator to create a quiz to check knowledge (and focus study) as students near the end of a rotation or a big exam.

Share this information with students and encourage them to use it in the way (or ways!) that fits best with how you are using Aquifer in your curriculum.

PracticeSmart questions are unique, they are not the same as the questions embedded throughout the cases or in our Calibrate formative assessments.

Some of the PracticeSmart questions came from the self-assessment questions that have long been found at the end of most Aquifer cases, however all questions have undergone an extensive review and editing process, and brand new questions have been added to the PracticeSmart quizzes. Our Consortium of subject matter experts are continually writing new questions to keep up with the changing nature of health care, so our bank of PracticeSmart questions will continue to grow over time.

PracticeSmart is complementary to Calibrate assessments. PracticeSmart quizzes are ideal to provide additional guidance and knowledge checks for students along their learning journey between Calibrate assessments.

Because individual PracticeSmart data is just for students, Calibrate provides an important link between faculty and learners, showing an overview of individual student performance (along with cohort-level item details to highlight curricular gaps).