I’ve always thought that most students smart enough to get into medical school don’t need to be sorted by intelligence or academic achievement. I think experience and diversity may be the better sorting criteria.
For my 3rd year psychiatry clerkship I always start the sort first by asking students if they have had any experience in psychiatry or if they were psychology majors. I then sort by college major.
I then ask the students to line up by location of birth. It’s a fun way to both find out where students are from and create diverse groups with a mix of urban/rural/national/international mix.
After the groups are arranged I take a look and make sure there is a gender distribution where there is at least one man and one woman in each team. If I see a gender homogenous team I will have them draw straws
to choose a member to switch with another group.
Ruth Levine MD
University of Texas Medical Branch
Galveston, Texas
From: Team-Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Geiss, Roger
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2012 11:19 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Forming Teams in second year preclinical classes in Medical School
We are embarking on using TBL in a number of our second-year preclinical courses, and I am interested in knowing the criteria used by others to form teams in such classes. Some
criteria are fairly straightforward, while others are not. In particular, how does anyone “get at” previous academic achievement without embarrassing low-achieving students. I suppose one could “preselect” using their transcripts, but that would compromise
transparency.
In addition to using (or not using) academic achievement, what other criteria do any of you use? Thanks much.
Roger
Roger W. Geiss, M.D.
Professor and Chair
Department of Pathology
University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria
1 Illini Drive, Box 1649
Peoria, IL 61656-1649
Phone: 309-671-8440
Fax: 309-671-8434
E-mail:
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