This ePortfolio documents the major deliverables I created for the completion of Successful Teaching Online Mentoring Program (STOMP) at Harper College. The contents are as follows: Community-Building Activity Time Management Tip List Final Project: Lesson idea, assessment and rubric developed using Backwards Design principles Final Reflections/Lessons Learned

1. STOMP
ePortfolio
Presenter:
Paula Akialis

2. ePortfolio Contents
This ePortfolio documents the major deliverables I
created for the completion of Successful Teaching Online
Mentoring Program (STOMP) at Harper College. The
contents are as follows:
 Community-Building Activity
 Time Management Tip List
 Final Project: Lesson idea, assessment and rubric
developed using Backwards Design principles
 Final Reflections/Lessons Learned

3. Community-Building Activity
Instructions:
 Share an asynchronous community-building idea on the Week 2
discussion board (Discussion board link below.) Through
reviewing the resources above, please come up with one
community-building activity that can be implemented in an
asynchronous online learning environment. This activity can be
an icebreaker, but it can also be an activity that makes sense
later in the semester when relationships have already begun to
form. When sharing your idea, please include the following
information:
 Title
 Task
 Objective(s)
 Instructions
 How this idea builds community

4. Community-Building Activity
Title: What Does it take to be a Medical Coder?
Task: Using your past experience in coding courses and referring to
current job postings for medical coders, identify valuable traits and
qualities of a medical coder and recognize these qualities in yourself
and in your classmates.
Objective(s): To build community, learn about each other’s expectations
and experiences of the essential qualities of a medical coder.

5. Community-Building Activity
Instructions: Reflect on the skills you developed and utilized in
previous coding courses when you were introduced to coding
classification systems and you practiced assigning diagnosis and
procedure codes. What came easy to you? What did you find
challenging? What skills did you draw on to navigate the
documentation, approach the classification system, and apply the
guidelines?
 Create a thread on the Discussion Board and
 List the top three traits or qualities that you feel a coder needs in
order to be successful and, for each, state why
 Share a link to a current job posting for a medical coder.
Comment on whether your “top three” are mentioned explicitly or
implicitly. If any are not mentioned, state why you think this is so.
 Reply to the post of one of your classmates with ideas on how to
further develop the traits he/she identifies.

6. Community-Building Activity
How this builds community: Students enrolled in this Advanced
Medical Coding course are nearing graduation and investigating
employment options. To manage the associated stress and to
establish a safe and supportive learning environment where
students can thrive, this exercise guides students to recognize that
they can now claim membership in the medical coding community
and they each have what it takes to be successful in this field.

7. Time Management Tip List
Instructions:
 Read through time management strategies for online instructors
from the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
 Create your own time management tip list for your professional
use, focusing on the tips that will be most important to you. Feel free
to copy and paste directly from the webpage, and add your own
notes as well. This assignment should be incorporated into your
journal submission for this week.

8. Time Management Tip List
 Handle it once:
 Email – if a message requires a reply or an action, do it right then.
Put emails that need to be kept, but not acted on, in a specific
folder before closing them. If the email is pure junk or not needed,
delete it, don't keep it… just in case.
 Focused Thinking – This chart by Learning Fundamentals is a
creative and colorful reminder of the ways we can improve
productivity by improving our focus, from managing our work
space to taking a digital technology detox.
 Respond to Student Questions Efficiently:
 Clear up Confusion - If more than one student emails with the
same question, then there is a need to respond to the whole
group. Post an announcement in the course site, an all-class
email, or a Q&A posting on the discussion board.

9. Time Management Tip List
 'Billable hours' in E-Learning:
 Make time count - Don't spend more time leaving comments than
students spent doing the assignment. If it is something the
students can do for EACH OTHER, or for themselves, have them
do it. For example, establish a Q & A forum as the first topic area
on the discussion board. Require students to post questions in
this area of the discussion board BEFORE sending an email to
the instructor and encourage students to assist each
 Get Organized:
 Use tools for efficiency - Del.icio.us, Diigo, and Scoop.it can help
to keep course resource links organized.

10. Time Management Tip List
 Work smarter, not harder, at grading:
 Rubrics – use rubrics to make grading easier and to clarify
expectations for the student.
 Peer feedback- Establish peer feedback activities to provide an
opportunity for students to revise and improve assignments
before final submission to the Dropbox.
 Know Thyself:
 Take time to Reflect - Record notes each week in a teaching
journal identifying thoughts about revisions for the next semester.
Some fixes like broken links can be done on the fly during the
current run, but others, like the rewriting of a section, need to wait
until the students are no longer present. At the end of the
semester, reflect on the notes and adjust as needed.

11. Final Project Summary
This presentation showcases an assessment, rubric and
lesson idea created for my Advanced Medical Coding
course. This culminating project demonstrates my ability
to apply Backwards Design principles to lesson plan
development. We were asked to choose 1-2 learning
objectives that fulfill the student outcome(s) of an existing
course and then create an assessment, rubric and lesson
idea that align with those objectives.

12. Advanced Medical Coding,
HIT235-W01
This course examines complex areas of ICD and CPT
coding utilizing patient records from a wide variety of
healthcare settings. Encoder software and electronic
coding references are used extensively. Coding quality
and compliance, regulatory issues and revenue cycle
considerations are explored.

13. Student Outcomes (course level)
Students will…
 Develop appropriate physician queries to resolve data
and coding discrepancies.
Note: This student learning outcome is provided by our
accreditation organization with an associated Bloom’s
Taxonomy Level 6

14. Learning Objectives (lesson level)
 Given a clinical scenario, determine if a physician query should
be generated based on Official Coding Guidelines and AHIMA
guidelines for a compliant query process.
 Given a clinical scenario and query, determine whether or not the
query is compliant with AHIMA guidelines and give your
rationale.
 Compose a compliant physician query to seek clarification for
specificity of a diagnosis.
 Compose a compliant physician query to seek confirmation of a
diagnosis from the attending physician for a diagnosis that is
already present as an interpretation by the pathologist.
 Compose a compliant physician query to seek resolution of
conflicting practitioner documentation.
 Compose a compliant physician query to seek clarification of a
documented condition without clinical indicators.

15. Explanation of Alignment
 Learning Objectives 1 and 2 are at a lower Bloom’s level
(Analyze and Evaluate) than Learning Objectives 3-6 (Create)
and are the first steps in mastery of the process.
 My assessment involves two elements:
 Two quiz questions were created to directly measure the
first two learning objectives and require students to make
a judgment and explain their answers. This will allow the
instructor to correct errors in reasoning on an individual
and/or group basis.
 The Discussion Board posts (Physician Query Writing)
require integration and application of complex concepts.
The peer review portion necessitates critical thinking skills.
I chose to pair the students for the peer review to facilitate
a thoughtful and focused response.

16. Explanation of Alignment
 The rubrics are simple to understand, yet capture the
essential elements that should be assessed for learning
objectives 3-6.
 Physician Query Writing Assignment
 Content (format, clinical indicators, etc.)
 Critical Thinking (application, analysis, synthesis)
 Timeliness
 Physician Query Peer Review Assignment
 Meaningful analysis/feedback
 Constructive feedback
 Timeliness
 The physician query writing process requires iterative
practice. Rather than having multiple levels of
accomplishment, students can earn “satisfactory” or “needs
revision.” Their overall grade will be based on the number of
satisfactory queries they complete.

17. Explanation of Alignment
To prepare my students for writing compliant physician
queries, my lesson involves background reading on
query guidelines, followed by presentation of clinical
scenarios with step-by-step analysis for presence of
query criteria. Once students have demonstrated
mastery of these objectives, they will practice writing
queries. Finally, they will evaluate queries written by their
peers.

18. Lesson Plan
 Step 1: Determine if a query should be generated
o Read "Guidelines for Achieving a Compliant Query Practice."
Journal of AHIMA 84, no.2 (February 2013): 50-53.
http://library.ahima.org/xpedio/groups/public/documents/ahima
/bok1_050018.hcsp?dDocName=bok1_050018
o Create a checklist including the five “When and How to
Query” elements mentioned in the article
o Using your checklist, evaluate the scenarios provided in
Assignment 1 to determine if a query should be written.
o You may repeat Assignment 1 multiple times and will be
presented with different scenarios each time. When you
demonstrate 100% accuracy on ten scenarios, move on to
Step 2.

19. Lesson Plan
 Step 2: Determine if a given query is compliant
o Add to your “When and How to Query” checklist with “Do’s
and Don’ts.” Include elements mentioned in the article
related such as “Do not lead the physician.”
o Using your checklist, evaluate the scenarios provided in
Assignment 2 to determine and correct any problems with
query etiquette.
o You may repeat Assignment 2 multiple times and will be
presented with different scenarios each time. When you
demonstrate 100% accuracy on ten scenarios, move on to
Step 3.

20. Lesson Plan
 Step 3: Practice Writing Queries
o For Assignment 3, you will be given various clinical
scenarios. Compose a compliant query for each.
o You may repeat Assignment 3 multiple times and will be
presented with different scenarios each time. When you
demonstrate 100% accuracy on five scenarios, move on to
Step 4.

21. Lesson Plan
 Step 4: Evaluate Queries and Receive Feedback
o Utilizing the rubric, provide constructive feedback to your
partner on a query he/she has written.
o Receive constructive feedback from your partner on a
query you have written. Make any necessary corrections
and submit your corrected query (Assignment 4).

22. Assessment
 Quiz Question 1 (Short Answer)
Read the following clinical scenario. Based on Official Coding Guidelines
and AHIMA guidelines for a compliant query process, answer the
following:
 Should a physician query be written? (Yes or No)
 Explain why or why not
Clinical Scenario: A 94-year-old patient is admitted from a SNF. The
admitting physician documents that the patient will receive surgical
treatment for a sacral pressure ulcer. The physician does not mention the
stage of the ulcer; the wound care nurse documents that this is a Stage 3
pressure ulcer.

23. Assessment
 Quiz Question 2 (Short Answer)
Read the following clinical scenario and physician query in order to answer:
 Is the physician query compliant with AHIMA guidelines?
(Yes or No)
 Explain why or why not
Clinical Scenario: A patient is admitted with pneumonia. The admitting H&P
examination reveals WBC of 14,000; a respiratory rate of 24; a temperature
of 102 degrees; heart rate of 120; hypotension; and altered mental status.
The patient is administered an IV antibiotic and IV fluid resuscitation.
Query: The patient has elevated WBCs, tachycardia, and is given an IV
antibiotic for Pseudomonas cultured from the blood. Are you treating for
sepsis?

24. Assessment
 Physician Query Writing Assignment and Peer
Review (Discussion Board Post)
Each student will be given a unique clinical scenario. Based on this
scenario,
 Compose a compliant physician query and post it for peer review.
 Critique your partner’s query by listing three strengths and at least
one thing that needs improvement.
 Re-post your physician query after making improvements and
corrections.

25. Assessment Rubric
o Physician Query Writing Assignment
Satisfactory Needs Revisions/Incomplete
Content
Physician Query includes all of the following:
Physician Query lacks one or more of the
following:
· Appropriate format
(Yes/No, Multiple Choice or Open Ended)
· Appropriate format
(Yes/No, Multiple Choice or Open Ended)
· Inclusion of relevant clinical indicators· Inclusion of relevant clinical indicators
· No mention of impact on
reimbursement
· No mention of impact on reimbursement
· Non-leading · Non-leading
Critical Thinking There is clear evidence of critical thinking
(application, analysis, synthesis, and
and the content is relevant to the assignment.
Lacks critical thinking. Entry does not clearly
address issues relevant to the clinical scenario
provided. Overall, the entry does not help the
participant fully meet relevant objectives or
demonstrate outcomes.
Timeliness
Assignment is submitted on or before the due
date.
Assignment is not submitted or is submitted
late.

26. Assessment Rubric
o Physician Query Peer Review Assignment
Satisfactory Needs Revisions/Incomplete
Provided meaningful feedback on
assignment
Comments indicate meaningful
analysis of the physician query
including analysis of at least three
strengths and one potential point
of improvement with examples.
At least one of the listed
criteria was not met for the
peer review. Or a peer review
was not submitted. Or
feedback provided was
superficial and did not provide
true analysis.
Provided all
comments in a
positive,
encouraging, and
constructive manner
Feedback provides praise for
specific strengths. Any
constructive feedback is tactful
and encouraging.
Comments are neutral, lack
encouragement, or might be
interpreted as insulting or
condescending, and/or do not
follow netiquette policies.
Timeliness
Assignment is submitted on or
before the due date.
Assignment is not submitted or
is submitted late.

27. Lessons Learned
I have greatly benefitted from this STOMP course and I believe
my students will, in turn, benefit. There is nothing like “learning
by doing,” and this course has provided that experience. The
pace was quick, the work was demanding, and the outcomes
positive.
Here are some valuable insights I have gained:
 Engaged learning in an online environment requires
intentional engineering by the instructor
 Online learners must build trust and interdependence with
their classmates without ever being physically present with
one another

28. Lessons Learned
 Community building is key; do not rush through this step to
get to the “meat” of the course
 Many online tools are available to promote communication
and collaboration, but each must be chosen carefully with the
learning outcomes in mind
 Both synchronous and asynchronous learning activities can
be utilized; choose based on the nature of the activity
 It is important not to underestimate the anxiety oftentimes
associated with the demands of online learning

29. Lessons Learned
 Anticipate and mitigate technology problems
 Instructor presence on Discussion Boards demonstrates
engagement, promotes communication, and models
appropriate participation
 Build in redundancy in communication
 Incorporate opportunities for student-led activities
 Practice good time management
 Be clear
 Be calm
 Be consistent
 Be considerate