BiomedWorks: How Doctors Use Evidence-Based Medicine- The long-term objective of BiomedWorks is to improve high school teachers' and students' understanding of the clinical trial process and the advances in health science that arise from such trials while building knowledge and skills in science and mathematics. To accomplish this, the project will develop and field-test 12 medically focused inquiry-based curricular units (four per year) for high school biology and mathematics classes during the three-year development phase. The curricular units will be aligned with national and state standards so that they will support learning areas of mathematics and science in a real world context. BiomedWorks will pique the interest of high school students in biomedical science by engaging them in medical challenges via filmed vignettes. A team of four master teachers and four medical doctors will define the clinical scenarios that provide a setting for framing medical questions about therapy, diagnosis, or prognosis. Each vignette will be filmed on site at Maine Medical Center using attending and resident physicians and third year medical students. The vignettes will have an associated medical article that addresses a clinical question and can be analyzed using evidence-based medicine (EBM) techniques, a systematic approach used by physicians to analyze clinical trials that involves mathematics. Twelve additional high school teachers will be recruited to participate in the program. Summer workshops will introduce the teachers to the EBM process of asking answerable questions, searching the medical literature for clinical trials, and evaluating evidence from trials through the process of authoring a critically appraised topic (CAT), a formal way of structuring and presenting the analysis of a clinical trial. During the weeklong workshops, teams of teachers, master teachers, and physicians will develop four inquiry-based curricular units per year using the medical vignettes and modeled on the EBM process. Teachers will field-test the curricula with their students during the academic year. During the final two years of the project, these field-tested filmed vignettes and accompanying inquiry-based curricula will be published as interactive media and print materials with a CD tutorial making BiomedWorks available in multiple school settings. This material will be disseminated throughout Maine (500 high school teachers, 17,000 students) and the nation via local and regional workshops and national teacher meetings. ? ? ?
