Leveraging and Assessing Student Thinking

This book is a compilation of teaching theories and strategies for eliciting and interpreting student thinking to adapt to educational settings.
Medical education is no longer about simply providing students with knowledge, as it was in Flexner's day. Modern medical education is focused on shaping how students understand, define, and move the practice of medicine forward. Modern medical schools focus on building student's ability to reason clinically and develop their own identity as professionals while integrating those pieces of their identity with their emerging content knowledge.
This level of high-quality education requires medical educators to understand their learners and see their learners as more than repositories for knowledge. A medical educator must understand who the learner is, what the learner already knows, and what misunderstandings the learner has. Hence, educators must learn to be skilled not simply at conveying information, but rather at eliciting student thinking and understanding to discern what and how to best teach the learner. Faculty often think of teaching this way as complex and time-consuming. However, in this manual we reveal that once the theoretical underpinnings of why leveraging and assessing student thinking matters are understood, educators can enact the theory by building specific teaching skills.
This manual is written by authors steeped in educational theory and with a background in teacher education. Other manuals and book chapters have looked at active learning and rubrics which are part of learner-centered instruction. This manual is the first of its kind to help medical educators practice what it means to teach in a learner-centered way by leveraging student thinking.
The manual is written using educational theory and literature, includes vignettes for illustrative purpose, and provides practical steps in enacting strategies to elicit student thinking. In the first section of this manual, we define the practices of eliciting and interpreting student thinking and explain why student thinking matters, introduce readers to gradual release theories of learning, and showcase the benefits of using students' experiences, background, and prior knowledge. In the second section of the manual, we explain in further detail how to leverage and assess student thinking. We describe, illustrate with vignettes, and provide step by step guides on the skills of questioning, giving feedback, debriefing clinical experiences, analyzing student work, and assessing student thinking and understanding in the medical education context.

List of contents

Part 1. Why does Student Thinking Matter? An Exploration of Theory.- 1. Eliciting and Interpreting Student Thinking (Stacey Pylman & Cathy Abbott).- 2. Meeting Learners Where They Are (Rachel Moquin & Lara Zisblatt).- 3. Addressing Imposter Syndrome: Leveraging Prior Knowledge to Support a Sense of Belonging in Medical Learners (Emiko Blalock and Amy Greenberg).- Part 2. How to Leverage and Assess Student Thinking: An Exploration of Skills.- 4. Questioning Strategies (Stacey Pylman and Amy Greenberg).- 5. Feedback to Guide Thinking (Rachel Moquin).- 6. Debriefing Experiences to Elicit Student Thinking (Amy Greenberg and Stacey Pylman).- 7. Analyzing Student Work Using Rubrics (Stacey Pylman & Rachel Moquin).- 8. Using Assessment to Elicit Student Thinking and Promote Learning (Fei Chen & Lara Zisblatt).

About the author

Stacey Pylman, PhD is an Associate Professor and Director of Continuing Medical Education in the Office of Medical Education Research and Development at Michigan State University, College of Human Medicine in East Lansing, MI. Pylman received her doctorate in Teacher Education at the College of Education at Michigan State University. Her primary role is instructional coaching and faculty development for medical educator faculty. She also works directly with community faculty and faculty across the nation on teaching and learning projects that focus on teaching effectiveness, precepting skills, active learning strategies, online teaching, and student learning. Pylman also serves on the Faculty Development Special Interest Group in the AAMC Central Group on Educational Affairs (CGEA), serves on The Generalists in Medical Education Steering Committee, and manages the DR-ED Listserv. In 2022, Pylman received the AAMC CGEA M. Brownell "Brownie" Anderson Early Career Medical Educator Award.
Pylman’s teaching and research interests in medical education include faculty development, effective teaching practices, clinician-educator action research, co-teaching, instructional coaching, active learning, questioning, and clinician-educator identity development. She has published articles on questioning in medical education, effective instruction in simulation, and medical educator development programs.
 
Rachel Moquin, EdD, MA is an Associate Professor and the Associate Vice-Chair for Faculty and Educator Development in the Department of Anesthesiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Moquin currently works as a medical education and faculty development specialist, primarily focused on enhancing the teaching skills of clinician educators, as well as supporting faculty in educational scholarship and research, curriculum and assessment design, and integration of adult learning theory into educator practice. Her key areas of interest are qualitative research methods, effective feedback practices, active learning and learner engagement, professional identity formation, and learner remediation.
Dr. Moquin received her master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Mississippi and her Doctoral degree in Education Leadership and Policy from Vanderbilt University. She is currently involved in research projects in the areas of clinician educator development, professional identity formation, curriculum development in graduate medical education, and communities of practice. She is also a co-convener of the Faculty Development Special Interest Group of the Central Group for Education Affairs through the AAMC.
 
Amy Greenberg, MEd is the Director of Student Success in the Office of Medical Education Research and Development at Michigan State University, College of Human Medicine in East Lansing, MI.  She works directly with faculty on teaching and learning projects that focus on teaching effectiveness, supporting students in their transition to medical school, supporting metacognition for both educators and students, and other aspects of student success.
Greenberg is currently a doctoral student in the Higher, Adult and Lifelong Education (HALE) program at Michigan State University. She has diverse interests in teacher education/development, metacognition, clinical reasoning and leadership development. Greenberg’s work in medical education is focused on the nexus of teaching and learning at the level of the individual and the institution. She explores how preceptors promote metacognition and learning in students. She is also interested in how medical students develop both their clinical reasoning skills and their professional identity. She has published articles on questioning in medical education, the role of self-regulated learning in medical education and medical educator development programs.

Summary

This book is a compilation of teaching theories and strategies for eliciting and interpreting student thinking to adapt to educational settings.
Medical education is no longer about simply providing students with knowledge, as it was in Flexner’s day. Modern medical education is focused on shaping how students understand, define, and move the practice of medicine forward. Modern medical schools focus on building student’s ability to reason clinically and develop their own identity as professionals while integrating those pieces of their identity with their emerging content knowledge.
This level of high-quality education requires medical educators to understand their learners and see their learners as more than repositories for knowledge. A medical educator must understand who the learner is, what the learner already knows, and what misunderstandings the learner has. Hence, educators must learn to be skilled not simply at conveying information, but rather at eliciting student thinking and understanding to discern what and how to best teach the learner. Faculty often think of teaching this way as complex and time-consuming. However, in this manual we reveal that once the theoretical underpinnings of why leveraging and assessing student thinking matters are understood, educators can enact the theory by building specific teaching skills.
This manual is written by authors steeped in educational theory and with a background in teacher education. Other manuals and book chapters have looked at active learning and rubrics which are part of learner-centered instruction. This manual is the first of its kind to help medical educators practice what it means to teach in a learner-centered way by leveraging student thinking.
The manual is written using educational theory and literature, includes vignettes for illustrative purpose, and provides practical steps in enacting strategies to elicit student thinking. In the first section of this manual, we define the practices of eliciting and interpreting student thinking and explain why student thinking matters, introduce readers to gradual release theories of learning, and showcase the benefits of using students’ experiences, background, and prior knowledge. In the second section of the manual, we explain in further detail how to leverage and assess student thinking. We describe, illustrate with vignettes, and provide step by step guides on the skills of questioning, giving feedback, debriefing clinical experiences, analyzing student work, and assessing student thinking and understanding in the medical education context.

Product details

• Assisted by: Amy Greenberg (Editor), Rachel Moquin (Editor), Stacey Pylman (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.09.2025
• EAN: 9783031897139
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3189713-9
• No. of pages: 140
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 9 mm x 235 mm
• Weight: 254 g
• Illustrations: XVII, 140 p. 19 illus.
• Series: IAMSE Manuals
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Education > Adult education; Pädagogische Psychologie, Medizin, allgemein, Lehrerausbildung, Educational psychology, Medical education, Teaching and Teacher Education, Eliciting student thinking in medical education, Student thinking in medical education, Interpreting student thinking in medical education, Questioning student prior experience and background