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Julie Noyes’ Three Minute Thesis


Formative Assessment in the Veterinary Curriculum

Veterinary medical students are expected to learn a tremendous amount of information during their rigorous training. As technology becomes more advanced, the rate of medical research increases and creates an exponential growth in medical information annually. As a result, veterinary faculty are tasked with teaching students the most current and cutting edge standard of care practices in addition to the already immense amount of foundational medical knowledge.

Veterinary students must actively organize, process and integrate this immense amount of information as they progress through the 4 year cumulative curriculum that culminates in a clinical learning environment. This rigorous type of program requires the students to retain all of the information from each previous class so that subsequent lessons can build upon and expand this existing knowledge base. Understandably, students may become cognitively overloaded throughout the curriculum causing various gaps in knowledge specific to each student. Because faculty are already tasked with conveying a continuously growing amount of information, it becomes impossible to identify which information needs to be readdressed for which students. It is simply impossible for faculty to dedicate class time to reviewing materials when that time is already barely sufficient to convey the massive amount of information in the current lesson.

Presently, many veterinary programs utilize summative assessment, or assessment of learning, to evaluate retention of concepts from a lesson before students move on in the curriculum. However, this type of assessment cannot necessarily predict whether students will retain the information. Formative assessment, or assessment for learning, can be used more frequently throughout the training period to provide students with immediate feedback, at any point in the program, regarding any gaps in student knowledge for a given topic.   This technique can be unobtrusively incorporated throughout the veterinary curriculum to identify specific gaps in knowledge for the individual learner that must be addressed before learning cumulative material. This information will allow the student to efficiently remaster the necessary concepts upon which the current or subsequent information must be built. This provides the learner with self-regulation and goal setting strategies that are utilized outside of valuable classroom time. Additionally, formative assessments provide faculty members with pedagogical feedback so that adjustments can be made to lessons that consistently result in knowledge gaps for many students. Finally, this form of assessment can be linked to multimedia educational tools so that learning can be tailored to the individual by providing the specific resources each student needs for successful learning.

 

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Veterinary Science Education

Julie Noyes attended veterinary school at Colorado State University. After graduating in 2011, she joined Blue Sky Animal Clinic in Loveland, CO where she practiced mixed animal medicine. Next, she entered a small animal surgical internship at Aspen Meadow Veterinary Specialists in Longmont, CO where she received specialty training in advanced small animal surgical procedures.

In 2013, she came to Pullman with her husband Josh to begin a Master’s program in Veterinary Science. As a part of the program, she taught veterinary students in both a clinical and laboratory setting. Through the experience, she developed a love for teaching and a deep respect for veterinary educators.

After completing her Master’s degree, she immediately began a PhD program focused on Veterinary Education. The new program allows her to follow her passion through educational research designed to promote student learning, enhance faculty welfare, and advance the field of veterinary medicine.