Project:
Redesigning Embryology Curriculum for Northwestern University’s Graduate Program in Genetic Counseling
Redesigning Embryology Curriculum for Northwestern University’s Graduate Program in Genetic Counseling
Below are brief details about my project, from the motivation to examples of the curricular components, initial feedback, and future plans.
This project was really born from both passion and opportunity. My absolute favorite topic of anatomy to teach is embryology. Our GC program at Feinberg was looking for someone internal to take over teaching this curriculu, after a few years of transition. This presented an opportunity to teach my favorite subject, but in a completely new-to-me discipline.
This one-slide example illustrates some of my focus for curricular re-development. First, focusing on some of the 'basics' in my books - adapting the learning objectives to be clear and aligned with Bloom's taxonomy. For content, I then leveraged my educational skills of clear organization and structure - clearly detailing the level of detail of content expected to know.
To make content adapted for this particularly group of students, I highlighed specific genetic and clinical correlations. This was also personally a great learning opportunity to learn from clinical faculty that led this course.
Finally, drawing on what I learned from the Searle Fellowship, each session features a 'CAT of the Day' where I could gauge students understand, and have a place to recap/start conversations on the next class session.
Initial feedback from the session was very positive. On the 3 measures used in the GC evaluations, the content was rank 5/5. Narrative feedback was also very postive (some illustrative comments to the left).
In terms of next steps (upon completion of the Searle Fellowship in May 2025), I plan to first submit my work on the content re-development internally, and am hoping to present some portion of this content at Feinberg's Medical Education Day in September 2025.
Beyond this, I look forward to teaching in the course again the second time around in Winter 2026.
As this academic year progresses, I hope to also explore submitting this content for publication elsewhere. I would love to have these resources be more accessible to GC programs nationally, who may also be struggling to find high quality embryology education resources.