Zooming In on a Solution
This Einstein SHOUTout! heralds the dedication and diligence of Dina Astorino, Marykay Roddy-Champlin, and Donna Mahoney, whose proactive thinking helped resolve an issue encountered while using videoconferencing tool called Zoom.
![Thanks to the fixes that Marykay, Dina, and Donna put in place, small-group learning was able to take place with the same groupings as live classes]()
Thanks to the fixes that Marykay, Dina, and Donna put in place, small-group learning was able to take place digitaly with the same set of people as live classes.
Medical students and faculty involved in the second-year course, Introduction to Clinical Medicine-II, Physical Examination Module (ICM-II PE) were at an impasse. For this course, second years are required to come together periodically for peer practice and specialty sessions involving the physical examination. They gather in small groups to help students progress with physical examination techniques and learn how to apply those skills to patients seen during clinical experience site visits.
With the COVID-19 pandemic preventing in-person meetings, typically held in the Clinical Skills Center, there was a need to have the students come together in their usual intimate groups, along with their faculty leaders, using Zoom. During the initial attempt to coordinate the 23 groups, however, the pre-assignment breakout room function in Zoom wasn’t working, making it difficult for students to assemble within their usual ICM-II PE small groups.
The Bioethics course for first-year students hit the same roadblock. It was clear that something needed to be done so that the various class groups could connect in the way intended.
Enter Dina and Marykay, administrators in the office of medical education for the ICM course. They realized, after testing the pre-assignment function, that the platform was not recognizing certain student email addresses due to Einstein’s policy, which has since changed, of allowing users to modify their email addresses. This prevented some students from being assigned to breakout rooms in advance and for groups to gather according to their usual participants.
After troubleshooting and exploring the platform further, the resourceful administrators advised students to log in an hour before their sessions. This allowed them to assign the students manually to their appropriate breakout groups one by one.
“Through their dedication to problem-solving and to the mission of providing the right experience to Einstein students, Dina and Marykay truly went above and beyond to provide a viable solution,” said Martin Penn, senior director of operations in medical education.
Word of the success zoomed through campus channels, and soon the duo became a trio—adding Donna, office of medical education administrator—when the third-year Patients, Doctors, and Communities (PDC) course encountered the same problem. Donna applied the same workaround for the PDC sessions with similar success.
The resourceful team also connected with Einstein’s office of information technology, whose staff confirmed that the issue and the fix they’d identified was appropriate, noted Marty. Einstein IT has since worked with all Einstein users and with Zoom to standardize the email addresses associated with our Zoom accounts to be our institutional einsteinmed.org and montefiore.org address suffixes. This fix further facilitates pre-assignment of breakout rooms.
Posted on: Tuesday, May 26, 2020