Susan C Ellis, MA, EdS

Susan Ellis, MA, EdS, came to her new position with the Office of the Vice Chair of Education in the UA Department of Medicine in July 2017, after working at the Office of Medical Student Education (OMSE) in the UA College of Medicine Tucson for more than 20 years. She specializes in the development, implementation and improvement of measures of assessment of student performance and has contributed to all areas of educational efforts by the OMSE. She serves as a research mentor in the Teaching Scholars Program and gives 1-2 seminars per year in the AMES/OMSE Faculty Instructional Development Series on how to use assessment measures to improve teaching practice. Before her current position, Ms. Ellis ran the Deans' Teaching Scholars Program at the UA Health Sciences colleges for several years. She is also a member of the case-based instruction (CBI) Team. Her broad experience at the College of Medicine provides the institutional memory every instructional development program needs. She also served as a Professional Education Liaison for the Educational Program Committee for the LCME accreditation review process since 2012. Ms. Ellis conducts the facilitator training on assessment of students' problem-solving abilities and competence areas relevant to CBI.

Areas of focus

• Conducts instructional development activities regarding assessment of student performance for CBI and other instructional methods used in preclinical years.
• Assessment of student performance regarding all educational competencies
• ArizonaMed gradebook (weighting block grades; remediation and retake policies)
• Exam item analysis
• Writing learning objectives
• Program evaluation
• Education research
• Instructional development for faculty and medical students in CBI