At ǿմý School of Medicine, “IQ” stands for InQuiry Team (IQ Team), our main learning vehicle in the first two years of the WR2 curriculum.
An IQ Team is a small, student-centered learning team that uses elaborate patient cases and discussion to learn, retain, synthesize and integrate knowledge. Each team includes 9-10 students along with a faculty member who facilitates discussion and ensures that the learning objectives are addressed and that each member of the group contributes to the learning effort.
IQ Teams meet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday of the semester for two hours each day. At the start of the week, you’ll review cases with no prior knowledge of what is to be covered, much as a physician would when seeing a new patient. At the end of each session, you’ll work with the rest of your IQ Team to develop unique learning objectives helpful to generating a clinical framework and guiding learning throughout the week.
Learning via IQ Teams ensures an experiential, not passive learning experience, and permits the teaching of the basic sciences in the clinical context.
Additionally, IQ Team learning helps to:
- Integrate the core concepts of health and disease prevention into the curriculum;
- Hone the skills of scholarship, critical thinking and lifelong learning;
- Encourage an active interchange of ideas between learners and faculty;
- Immerse you in a graduate school educational environment characterized by flexibility and high expectations for independent study and self-directed learning;
- Foster the ability to work in teams—a critical skill to success in healthcare; and
- Translate basic science knowledge into the framework of medicine and health, the clinical context, population-science and social and behavioral science.
IQ Team Definitions
Check-In: Sharing what is going on in your life. This may seem trivial or even a waste of time, but it brings the group together and improves group function. Check-in is key for forming close teams and stresses the importance of group dynamics and interactions in the WR2 Curriculum.
Scribe: The team member who is responsible for taking notes on the whiteboard on Mondays while the team is brainstorming learning objectives. The scribe captures key questions and comments from the group on the whiteboard and then works with the group to consolidate these points into learning objectives.
Team Leader: The team member assigned responsibility for running the logistics of the session. Typically, the leader sets the agenda and helps to keep the team discussion on time and track. There may be one leader per week or case.
Learning Objectives: A targeted learning topic or question researched by students after the Monday morning IQ session and discussed in the IQ group on either Wednesday or Friday.
Check-Out: A tool for reflection on the group and individual performance and a simple metric for measuring and improving group process and functionality. It serves as a way to team-build by sharing compliments and concerns and providing constructive feedback.