Preamble

These standards apply to all required learning experiences, defined as required and transcripted courses and clerkship rotations.

The Foundations Director and Clerkship Director are responsible for ensuring that processes are in place to enable and support the provision and monitoring of formative and narrative assessment and feedback in accordance with the following standards.

Standards for formative assessment and feedback

These standards are informed by and should be implemented in accordance with the expectations and requirements of CACMS accreditation element 9.7, Timely Formative Assessment and Feedback.

Formative assessment and feedback provided to students should be grounded in the objectives of the required learning experience in order assist students in achieving those objectives.

• In all required learning experiences of four weeks or longer, every student must receive formal formative feedback by at least the mid-point of the learning experience.
• Clerkship clinical rotations with distinct sub-rotations should preferably provide mid-rotation feedback at the mid-point of each sub-rotation, but may instead provide this feedback at the mid-point of the rotation as a whole.
• For required learning experiences of less than four weeks, students should where possible be provided with timely formative feedback or alternate means by which a student can assess their progress in the experience.
• For half- or year-long required learning experiences, every student must receive formal formative feedback approximately every six weeks.

Standards for narrative feedback

These standards are informed by and should be implemented in accordance with the expectations and requirements of CACMS accreditation element 9.5, Narrative Feedback.

For all required learning experiences, a narrative description of a medical student’s performance, including his or her non-cognitive achievement, should be included as an assessment component whenever teacher-student interaction permits this form of assessment.