Assessing Formative Feedback After Table Conferences in the Icahn School of Medicine's Structures Course
Authors: Maffucci Patrick , Laitman Benjamin , Laitman Jeffrey 
Published: November 2023

The Structures course at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is a combination of three courses taken by first year medical students: Gross Anatomy, Histology, and Embryology. Functioning as a single unit, this course allows integration of these three areas to enhance student learning and offer a unique perspective for medical students. In previous years, we have reported our efforts to increase Teaching Assistant (TA) involvement in the course. Senior TAs (4th year medical students, scholarly year medical students, or PhD phase MD/PhD students) have become responsible for a broad range of activities in the course, notably organizing and presenting content at a variety of review sessions, and proctoring table conferences.

Table conferences, a substitute for traditional practical exams in Gross Anatomy that have normally been conducted by faculty members, were transitioned entirely to Senior Teaching Assistants last year. These conferences are an oral assessment of students’ practical and conceptual knowledge, meant to model interactions students may have with residents or attendings later in their medical education. It is our hope that students thus become comfortable with this format in preparation for these future interactions. Table conferences are conducted by student TAs four times during the course and result in a group grade of 6 (below average), 8 (average), or 10 (above average). After each conference, TAs record the table's grade and then give formative feedback about the group's performance.

This year, we seek to explore the dynamics of post‐table conference formative feedback. This feedback is meant to give students a chance to reflect on their table conference performance and analyze their strengths and weaknesses. TAs are instructed to give students a chance to explain how they felt about a conference before discussing their own thoughts. Students do not receive their grade on the day of the conference, so as to avoid discussions focusing on quantitative grades rather than qualitative feedback.

To assess the effectiveness of feedback, we have surveyed the TAs that have led table conferences, and in addition, are conducting group sessions with first year medical students to solicit their opinions about conferences. Overall, response to table conferences and conference feedback from students and TAs has been very positive. However, some responses we have already obtained indicate that the withholding of numerical grades during post‐conference feedback may actually have an opposite effect than desired, leaving students to attempt to “read into” TA feedback to determine the grade instead of qualitatively critiquing their own performance. In addition, when giving feedback to a table who has received a grade of below average, TAs have noted difficulty with finding a balance between being too upbeat, giving a false sense of optimism as to the grade, and being too negative. Regardless, the act of giving table conferences and formative feedback to students is excellent preparation for future medical education, and TAs often feel better prepared for other teaching positions having been a TA for Structures.