Supplemental Instruction
Even the most successful students are most effective when they actively engage the learning process, work with other learners, and ask questions of those with more experience. That's why the CAE offers Supplemental Instruction (SI) to every student enrolled at MUSC.
We award stipends to senior students to work as SI leaders for students who seek an additional facilitated group learning experience. These learning groups work interactively to master the challenging and voluminous material typically presented in lectures within health professional and biomedical science curricula.
Our students report high satisfaction with their learning in these SI groups, and our and others' peer-reviewed studies show that supplemental instruction leaders themselves perform better in coursework and on board exams. Any student can sign up for SI for courses with SI. Please go to our main page and find the “Request Supplemental Instruction” link and complete the form. If you are looking for SI for a course not listed on the SI sign-up from, please email the director of SI, Kasey Larson. Each term students can apply to be an SI leader taking what they learned from being an SI participant and sharing it with the next group of students.
If you have any questions about SI, please reach out to Kasey Larson.
Study Skills
Our students find the curricula at MUSC to be more challenging than any they have previously faced, as undergraduates or even in other graduate programs. Often strategies that made students successful before don't work quite as well in new situations.
While all of our students are fully capable of mastering the concepts and information presented in fast-paced lectures, the sheer volume can be an adjustment challenge-the saying goes, "it's like drinking from a fire hose."
Often, students' initial response to this new situation is simply to continue doing what they have always done-just doing it longer and working harder. CAE faculty are quite familiar with all the curricula at MUSC, and they are also familiar with the latest scholarship on how people learn. This knowledge allows us to collaborate with you, tailoring proven study methods to your individual needs and learning styles.
We encourage all students to schedule an individual consultation with a faculty member to learn, develop, or hone their approaches to learning. We will also develop workshops suitable for particular learners or programs.
Office of Humanities
As home to the Office of Humanities at MUSC, we want students to develop a fuller appreciation for the importance of human connection in practice and biomedical research. Therefore, our faculty offer multiple interprofessional humanities courses and experiences.
Courses emphasizes how the study of narrative and the act of writing can make students better interpreters of patient stories and more reflective in their own practice and research. Contact Dr. Kerr to take a course or to learn about all the ways the humanities and health care are interwoven.
Office of Humanities website
Test Taking Strategies
At MUSC and when taking certifying or board exams, taking tests is a significant reading challenge. For hours upon hours, students prepare by studying notes, working in Supplemental Instruction groups, or gathering in less formal settings to discuss what they're learning.
When they get to the test, they see information they have learned presented in a different way. Applying learned information to new situations is the core reading challenge. Some adjust more rapidly than others to this task. To speed this adjustment, the CAE offers individual coaching, using practice tests, to every student in any program.
Scientific & Scholarly Writing, Editing & Publication
Do you want to improve your writing for a research proposal? Would you like to submit more persuasive manuscripts to a journal or course professor? Let the Writing Center help you! Schedule a Writing Center appointment or contact one of our faculty if you'd like us to design a workshop or invite a science writing expert to discuss writing in a class.
Learning Style Assessment
Learners are different from each other. Some prefer to study deep into the night; others get up at the crack of dawn. Perhaps you demand complete silence when you study, or maybe you feel the need to play the Goldberg Variations.
In consultation with our faculty, students have been known to say, "I can see it on the page of my notes," or "I remember things that I have explained to someone else." The learning styles suggested by such comments, as well as the preferences that might lead one learner to use earplugs while another uses earbuds, are the subjects of study in the CAE's Learning Style Assessment.
Learners are encouraged to schedule an appointment to take this assessment, then discuss the results with faculty, who will suggest a variety of study approaches based on each learner's learning style and learning preferences.
Time Management Strategies
Your life is happening now-it cannot be put on hold while you complete your education-and like learning, the ability to manage time is a life skill. Doing it well often makes the difference between those who get by and those who excel.
Many people have heard about a variety of techniques for managing time. In fact, the calendar and day-timer businesses make a killing at the beginning of school semesters. Unfortunately, as any carpenter will tell you, having the tool and using it are quite different. Among the core problems faced by MUSC students is that there is literally not enough time in the day to learn and do all that could be done.
Priorities-for learning and for living a well-balanced life-must be set, a truism that is, of course, easier said than done. Because the challenge lies in applying time management tools to particular circumstances faced by each student, the CAE faculty consult individually with students who will one day consult individually with their clients and patients on such issues.
Learning Help
Writing • Learning • Teaching
At the Medical University of South Carolina, writing, learning, and teaching naturally form the core of our educational mission, but they are also essential to providing effective care and discovering new ways to improve health. If we don't write well, our discoveries will not be understood or used. If we don't seek to learn information that improves the care we provide, our patients will suffer. If we don't teach what we've learned to the next generation of health care providers and biomedical researchers, the public's health will be in jeopardy. The Center for Academic Excellence (CAE) and the Writing Center are central to MUSC's goal of ensuring that all students communicate clearly, learn efficiently and creatively, and benefit from master teachers.
Because student success is its heart, the CAE is dedicated to improving learning and teaching on campus. Health care providers must learn and re-learn in order to adapt their practices to the latest advances in biomedical science. They also must collaborate with colleagues across professions to provide quality care and conduct groundbreaking research. That's why the CAE provides collaborative learning groups; and the effectiveness of these groups is why a majority of MUSC students choose to participate — in addition to their scheduled class time. To discuss and analyze material covered in large lectures, senior students teach and mentor junior ones, sometimes across health care disciplines. Overwhelmingly, students who participate in this supplemental instruction report doing better in their courses; more importantly, they tell us they learn more. The benefit accrues to the senior students as well — our published research shows they score significantly higher on national exams and improve their grades at MUSC.
Another vital part of the work of the CAE is teaching the material and the strategies necessary for success on national and state licensing board/certifying exams. Under the tutelage of CAE faculty and their fellow students, students approach these rigorous exams with confidence and exceed national performance averages.
Individual Approach
- Individual learning style assessment
- Study-strategies for success
- Resources for ESL students
- Course-specific tutoring
One-hour sessions with Supplemental Instructors for any MUSC course
- Small-group sessions
- Individual appointments
- Academic support programs
Full-time professional faculty members are available to assist you with:
- Study skills
- Test taking strategies
- Reading speed and comprehension
- Time management
- Research
- Presentations: oral/visual
- Portfolio creation and review
- Resumes and applying for jobs
- Interviewing skills
