Beyond the feedback: a student-directed case-based collaborative learning Review committee

The curriculum of the Doctor of Medicine program at The University of Kansas School of Medicine includes a substantial portion of content delivered via small-group, case-based collaborative learning (CBCL) activities. As critical stakeholders in continuous quality improvement in their education, medical students are poised to make contributions to curriculum enhancement, though they are often underutilized resources.

Without a faculty-led curriculum revision committee, we piloted a student-led Case-Based Collaborative Learning Review Committee (SCRC) to systematically incorporate student feedback into curriculum revision efforts by reviewing three CBCL activities. The SCRC provided structured anonymous edits and feedback to faculty authors. Qualitative (thematic) data analysis used mixed methods to assess the intervention's impact and develop guidance for future iterations.

Sessions were well-received by participating students and receiving faculty based on satisfaction surveys. Thematic analysis of student-generated suggested edits revealed five primary categories of revisions: simple edits, pre-work recommendations, relevancy of social constructs, clarification, and 'need more'.

Overall, the intervention demonstrated that student-led review was feasible and yielded valuable multi-level feedback on small-group learning activities, such as CBCL. Further research could help determine if similar work could be feasible and effective for lectures and flipped classroom material and whether such continuous quality improvement should be required in our medical education curriculum processes.