Mentoring in Medicine (MIM): Motivating and enabling disadvantaged youth to become the next generation of minority health professionals

Mentoring in Medicine, Inc (MIM) is a nonprofit health and science youth development organization based in the Bronx, NY. Founded in 2006 by three physicians and an engineer- trained entrepreneur, MIM’s organizational goal is to expose socioeconomically disadvantaged students to the wide variety of health and science careers and to increase the health literacy of their communities. It is aligned with the outreach mission of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) whose former Director, Donald A.B. Lindberg M.D., fostered an enduring relationship. Technical assistance, evaluation, and financial support provided under his leadership helped MIM to become a nationally recognized organization leading the field to diversify health careers and to increase health literacy in often hard to reach populations. Through live and virtual programming, MIM has impacted nearly 58,000 students, parents, and educators in urban epicenters in the U.S. The MIM Team has helped 503 students who were discouraged to build a competitive application and matriculate in health professional school. MIM has 88 press features highlighting its work in the community.

Using Third-Party Evaluations to Assess Socioemotional Skills in Graduate School Admissions

Consideration of socioemotional skills in admissions potentially can increase representation of racial and ethnic minorities and women in graduate education as well as identify candidates more likely to succeed in graduate school. Research on one such assessment, the ETS Personal Potential Index (PPI), showed that the PPI produced much smaller racial/ethnic-gender group mean score differences than undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) did. Across levels of institutional selectivity, the PPI can promote racial/ethnic and gender diversity in graduate and professional school in ways that UGPA and GRE scores do not. Predictive validity analyses showed that for doctoral STEM programs the PPI dimensions of (i) Planning and Organization and (ii) Communication Skills positively predict graduate school grade point average as well as a lower risk of academic probation, a determinant of degree progress, both alone and incrementally over UGPA and GRE scores.

Anatomical self-efficacy of undergraduate students improves during a fully online biology course with at-home dissections

Student enrollments in online college courses have grown steadily over the past decade, and college administrators expect this trend to continue or accelerate. Despite the growing popularity of online education, one major critique in the sciences is that students are not trained in the hands-on skills they may need for the workforce, graduate school, or professional school. For example, the Association of American Medical Colleges has recommended that medical schools evaluate applicants on their motor skills and observation skills, yet many online biology programs do not offer opportunities for students to develop these skills. In on-campus biology programs, students commonly develop these skills through hands-on animal dissections, but educators have struggled with how to teach dissections in an online environment. We designed a fully online undergraduate biology course that includes at-home, hands-on dissections of eight vertebrate specimens. Over three course offerings, we evaluated changes in four student outcomes: anatomical self-efficacy, confidence in laboratory skills, perceptions of support, and concerns about dissections. Here, we describe how we implemented at-home dissections in the online course and show that students taking the course gained anatomical self-efficacy and confidence in multiple laboratory skills. Based on open-ended responses, the students perceived that their experiences with the at-home dissections facilitated these gains. These results demonstrate that at-home, hands-on laboratories are a viable approach for teaching practical skills to students in fully online courses. We encourage science instructors to introduce at-home laboratories into their online courses, and we provide recommendations for instructors interested in implementing at-home laboratories.

Formative Evaluation and Learning of the Technique of the Auction of Soccer of the Students of the University Level

The present research sought to determine the relationship between formative evaluation and the learning of the finishing technique of the subject of soccer of the students of the sixth cycle of the Professional School of Physical Education of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 2019. The research of quantitative type of correlational design. A questionnaire and test were applied to 46 students, whose results were processed by the SPSS program, in the same way following the statistical procedure of Spearman's Rho. The general hypothesis found a correlation of Rho = 0.818 which explains that the formative evaluation applied from time to time has a relational link with the learning of soccer finishing technique reaching a regular level. As for the five specific hypotheses, a relationship of Rho = 0.492; Rho = 0.722; Rho = 0.514; Rho = 0.582 and Rho = 0.640 was found, respectively, which is understood that the form of regulatory, procedural, continuous, feedback and innovative evaluation has an impact on learning in this course. The way in which the teacher applies his evaluation limits the grades of the course, since the students are not yet high.

Perception of teaching performance in the virtual learning environment

<span>This article aims to analyze the perception of the students of the professional school of business administration about the teaching performance in the virtual learning environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. When developing the research, it was determined that there is a good teaching performance, according to the perception of the students. However, it was identified that the factors of domain of the topic and class session management, present a better perception in this context of virtual learning; while the didactic strategies factor is the one that presents a not so favorable perception. In addition, through a comparative analysis, it was determined that the didactic strategies and planning factors have suffered a negative variation with respect to the perception per teacher, when moving from face-to-face to virtual learning, since, of the total of 17 specialty teachers, seven of them one negative variation. These results are validated by the linear regression test, where an R2 value of 0.965 is calculated, with respect to the didactic strategies factor. It means that this factor influences 96.5% on the perception of students with the global factor and an R2 value of 0.921 for the planning factor, which indicates an influence of 92.1%.</span>

The Importance of Mentors and How to Handle More Than One Mentor

Introduction: Working with multiple mentors is a critical way for students to expand their network, gain opportunities, and better prepare for future scholastic or professional ventures. However, students from underrepresented groups (UR) are less likely to be mentored or have access to mentors, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. We developed and implemented a workshop, to provide the necessary foundation for students to be better prepared for establishing future mentorships throughout graduate and professional school. Methods: Faculty well-versed in the area of effective mentorship from multiple universities developed and delivered a 1.5-hour workshop to address the roles of a mentor, especially when it comes to UR students, and how students may effectively work with multiple mentors. This workshop was delivered to a group of students from the HBCU Winston Salem State University, and a pre/post- Likert scale-based survey was administered. Results: We analyzed the raw data with nonparametric tests for comparison within paired samples. Wilcoxon matched-pairs and signed-rank tests showed statistically significant growth in student self-ratings related to the workshop learning objectives. Conclusions: The How to Handle More than One Mentor to Achieve Excellence workshop was well received as a component of pre-graduate and pre-professional training. Incorporating workshops like this may increase student preparedness around developing and cultivating healthy mentorship relationships throughout STEM training.

Thomas Knaus im Gespräch mit Jörg Keßler

Es wird Herbst in Ludwigsburg: Drei (pandemiebedingte) Onlinesemester liegen hinter uns und die Blätter im benachbarten Favoritepark färben sich bereits, als sich Prof. Dr. Jörg-U. Keßler (Professor für Englische Sprache und ihre Didaktik) und Prof. Dr. Thomas Knaus (Professor für Erziehungswissenschaft, Leiter der Abt. Medienpädagogik und Herausgeber der LBzM) treffen. Jörg Keßler ist seit 2018 Prorektor für Forschung und Internationales der PH Ludwigsburg sowie (gemeinsam mit Prof. Dr. Christine Sälzer, Uni Stuttgart) einer der beiden Direktor*innen der Professional School of Education Stuttgart-Ludwigsburg (PSE); er wurde außerdem im Sommer zum Nachfolger von Prof. Dr. Martin Fix, dem aktuellen Rektor der PH Ludwigsburg, gewählt.