Search

Student engagement while learning a new, unfamiliar vocabulary is challenging in health science courses. A group role-play activity was created to teach students medical terminology and learn why its correct usage is important. This activity brought engagement and relevance to a topic traditionally taught through lecture and rote memorization and led to the development of an undergraduate and a stand-alone introductory course to teach students medical terminology. The undergraduate course was designed to be a fully online medical terminology course for health science students and a face-to-face course for first-year dental students founded in active learning and group work. The course's centerpiece learning activity focused on using published case studies with role-play. In this group activity, students are challenged to interpret a published patient case study as one of the members of a healthcare team. This course models the group work inherent in modern health care to practice building community and practicing professional skills. This approach gives students the capacity to work asynchronously in a team-based approach using our learning management system's wiki tool and requires students to take responsibility for their learning and group dynamics. Students practice identification, writing, analyzing, and speaking medical terms while rotating through the roles. Students in both classes self-reported a 92% to 99% strong or somewhat agreement using a five-point Likert scale that the course pedagogy was valued and helpful in their learning of medical terminology. Overall, this method has proven to be an engaging way for students to learn medical terminology. NEW & NOTEWORTHY: Role-play can engage students and encourage learning in identification, pronouncing, writing, and understanding medical terminology in multiple course formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student engagement while learning a new, unfamiliar vocabulary is challenging in health science courses. A group role-play activity was created to teach students medical terminology and learn why its correct usage is important. This activity brought engagement and relevance to a topic traditionally taught through lecture and rote memorization and led to the development of an undergraduate and a stand-alone introductory course to teach students medical terminology. The undergraduate course was designed to be a fully online medical terminology course for health science students and a face-to-face course for first-year dental students founded in active learning and group work. The course's centerpiece learning activity focused on using published case studies with role-play. In this group activity, students are challenged to interpret a published patient case study as one of the members of a healthcare team. This course models the group work inherent in modern health care to practice building community and practicing professional skills. This approach gives students the capacity to work asynchronously in a team-based approach using our learning management system's wiki tool and requires students to take responsibility for their learning and group dynamics. Students practice identification, writing, analyzing, and speaking medical terms while rotating through the roles. Students in both classes self-reported a 92% to 99% strong or somewhat agreement using a five-point Likert scale that the course pedagogy was valued and helpful in their learning of medical terminology. Overall, this method has proven to be an engaging way for students to learn medical terminology. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Role-play can engage students and encourage learning in identification, pronouncing, writing, and understanding medical terminology in multiple course formats.

Benjamin Bloom published his Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Handbook I: Cognitive Domain in 1956 (New York: David McKay, Co.) to help educators develop learning objectives for teaching. Several modifications have been made since then to adapt Bloom's taxonomy to various uses and disciplines (Crowe A, Dirks C, Wenderoth MP. CBE Life Sci Educ 7: 368-381, 2008; Orgill BD, Nolin J. StatPearls . Treasure Island, FL: StatPearls Publishing, 2023; Thompson AR, O'Loughlin VD. Anat Sci Educ 8: 493-501, 2015). In terms of the "Introduction of the Idea," as social constructivist educators, the authors of this article felt the need to adjust Bloom's taxonomy to match the unique characteristics of team-based learning (TBL) in physiology courses. In terms of "Outcomes," we are introducing the use of TBL for teaching physiology in undergraduate and graduate physiology courses that could be easily translated into other disciplines. Additionally, we are introducing the Diamond Framework for TBL, a modified Bloom's taxonomy to match the unique characteristics of TBL and to guide the writing of measurable learning outcomes and assignments. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Team-based learning (TBL) has gained popularity as an educational framework that facilitates teaching conceptual and procedural subjects. However, this technique is less popular among physiology and biomedical sciences. Here, we describe a step-by-step guide for incorporating this learning approach for physiology. Further, we created the Diamond Framework for TBL, a visual taxonomy inspired by Bloom's taxonomy, designed explicitly for TBL, in which the "application" component is at the core of the diamond.

We describe an inquiry activity that aims to develop students' ability to interpret findings that span whole body systems and so encourage the integration of knowledge. The scenario we choose was the physiological challenge posed by diarrhea and the physiological mechanisms that underpin oral rehydration therapy. Before the staff-facilitated inquiry activity, students engage with an online information resource and complete a formative, but mandatory, prelaboratory quiz. These tasks encourage students to develop some mastery of the relevant physiology before the timetabled inquiry activity. The 3-h inquiry activity is driven by a paper workbook containing data from published studies, mainly from veterinary physiology, of the various consequences of diarrhea. Figures from published data are arranged so that, initially, the impact of dehydration on a single system (the cardiovascular system) could be appreciated. Integration with other systems (respiratory and renal systems) is then introduced progressively through the activity. The exercise is designed as a team-based inquiry activity that emphasizes the value of discussion to identify appropriate features for interpretation of the data. Students are obliged to complete a postlaboratory quiz within 5 days of the inquiry activity, serving to consolidate the students' learning and provide staff with feedback on the attainment of intended learning outcomes. Marks from formative pre- and postlaboratory quizzes typically have a median mark in excess of 80% (pass mark is 50%), and qualitative feedback suggests that the majority of students recognized the value of the activity, despite simultaneously reporting that it was intellectually demanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel educational tool helps teach intestinal absorption in physiology--We have designed an interesting educational tool to help sophomores learn intestinal absorption in physiology course. In the study group (2019), 51 sophomores from biomedical engineering were encouraged to learn the intestinal absorption knowledge through reading materials and group discussion. Then, using the form of flipped class, they stepped on the podium and simulated and explained the absorption processes with designed paper props as educational tool. In contrast, the control group (2018), 52 sophomores from the same specialty had taken the same professional courses before. The result of theoretical test showed the average score in the study group was higher than that in the control group. The questionnaire analysis showed the positive role of the education tool in their learning efficacy. To sum up, using our tool has achieved better teaching effects than the traditional lecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team-based learning (TBL) provides a systematic approach to teaching and learning and promotes critical thinking and enhances medical educational activities and professional development. TBL-based didactic methodology has proven beneficial in enhancing learning and consolidating key educational concepts throughout educational curricula. Such areas of application include neuroscience, which is traditionally considered to be one of the most difficult disciplines to be taught in undergraduate medical courses to the point where the scientific literature reports “neurophobia” among undergraduate medical students. Herein, we report the design and application of a modified version of TBL, which we termed teambased review (TBR) throughout two cohorts of undergraduate medical students undertaking neuroscience. We show that our TBR methodology enhanced student understanding of neuroscience, increasing average marks and grades achieved in final exams, while also increasing the proportion of students obtaining higher grades. Application of TBR also improved marks obtained by students throughout continuous assessment (midterms, TBL, and problem-based learning grades). In surveys taken following final exams, students strongly felt that TBR enhanced their learning experience and aided knowledge acquisition, consolidation, and exam preparation. Collectively, we show that TBR-based methodology was effective in enhancing the student learning experience and performance in neuroscience and could potentially be successfully used to enhance performance and learning in other subjects in the undergraduate medical curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in the health sciences devotes much attention to overweight and obesity and, consequently, to body composition. In recent years, traditional body measures have been questioned as efficient variables in health sciences due to the fact that they cannot give information about body fat mass. Our aim is to teach how to analyze body composition through anthropometry and bioelectrical impedance analysis to our “Physiology of Vegetative and Reproductive Functions” students, who are studying for their degree in Biology. We proposed project-oriented-learning to promote collaborative interactions among students. Fifty-two students voluntarily formed five groups; they worked with the concepts of basal metabolic rate and body composition from a theoretical point of view and later transformed these concepts into a practical perspective by preparing a manuscript in groups with objectives proposed by our teaching team. In this research, we show a collaborative educational scenario for university students in which students are tutored from a constructivist perspective to promote social interactions, resulting in new knowledge acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In conventional team-based learning (TBL), readiness assurance test (RAT) items must be formatted as free-standing multiple-choice questions (MCQs). Even in the application phase of TBL, all teams must work on the same, significant problem and be required to make a specific choice and simultaneously report them to the whole class, which the MCQ format with predetermined answer choices allows. However, the founders of the TBL method rightly emphasize that the intended learning outcomes of a course using TBL underlie the design of the various components of TBL. The main point of this brief essay is to suggest that, if the ability to generate solutions to problems without predetermined answer choices is an intended learning outcome, it is advantageous to include carefully constructed free-standing, open-ended questions (OEQ) for both RAT and application activities in courses using TBL as the primary instructional method, in addition to the use of MCQs. Freestanding OEQs are OEQs not linked to an MCQ used for RAT or application activities. How this might be incorporated in what one may envision as TBL is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To introduce active learning session for a large group of 250 students, we combined the strengths of problem-based learning and team-based learning to promote a structured active learning strategy with less faculty involvement. For the implementation of this strategy, a case on anemia was selected based on the module already covered in classes. Structured exercises were preplanned on six different concepts that a student should possess for solving the problem. The large group of 250 students was divided into groups of 41 or 42 each. The groups were facilitated by one faculty member for one structured exercise. At the station, the group of 41 or 42 was further broken down into 6 smaller groups comprising 7 students each. After completion of the exercise, students cycled to the next exercise station facilitated by another faculty member. The case was solved in a plenary session. The effectiveness of the method was assessed by comparing the academic performance of the group with other similar groups from the previous year. The intervention group performed significantly better than the nonintervention group on the related item. Quartile subanalysis found that the effect was present in the performance of average and higher quartile groups, but not in the lower quartile group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our medical school, we changed from a lecture-based method to a team-based learning (TBL) method to teach "polyneuropathies" in the neurology clerkship starting from the 2014 to 2015 academic year. Real patients were used instead of written scenarios in TBL sessions. This study aimed to compare former lecture-based and the current TBL methods in terms of knowledge retention, in-class learner engagement, and learner reactions. First, we determined in-class engagement and satisfaction of the students for the lectures given in the 2013-2014 academic year. The following year, besides the same criteria, we also determined individual (IRAT) and group readiness test (GRAT) scores in the TBL group. End-of-clerkship exam scores for both groups were recorded. Additionally, opinions of patients about their experiences throughout the TBL process were determined. One year later (2015 for lecture and 2016 for TBL), both groups sat for an MCQ test to determine their knowledge retention levels. We found no difference between groups regarding end-of-clerkship exam scores. The mean knowledge retention test score of the TBL group was significantly higher than that of the lecture group (5.85 ± 1.74 vs. 3.28 ± 1.70). The differences between IRAT, GRAT, and retention test scores in the TBL group were significant. The mean student satisfaction score on a five-point scale was 3.01 ± 0.9 (median = 3) in the lecture group and 4.11 ± 1.1 (median = 4) in the TBL group. Our results seem encouraging for use of TBL performed with real patients in neurology education to achieve better long-term knowledge retention and higher in-class engagement and student satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this review is to highlight the key elements needed to successfully deploy team-based learning (TBL) in any class, but especially in large enrolment classes, where smooth logistics are essential. The text is based on a lecture and workshop given at the American Physiological Society’s Institute on Teaching and Learning in Madison, WI, in June 2016. After a short overview of the TBL method, its underpinning in learning theory, and a summary of current evidence for its effectiveness, we present two case studies from our own teaching practices in a new medical school. The first case study explores critical elements of design and planning for a TBL module, and the second explores best practices in classroom management. As medical educators in the fields of physiology, pediatrics, nephrology, and family medicine, we present the objective views of subject matter experts who adopted TBL as one teaching method rather than TBL experts or advocates per se. The review is aimed primarily at faculty contemplating using TBL for the first time who are interested in exploring the significant benefits and challenges of TBL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team-based learning (TBL) is an emerging teaching and learning strategy being employed in medical schools. The College of Medicine at Alfaisal University has adopted a TBL approach as an instructional method for first-year medical students. The aim of the present study was to describe the TBL method employed at Alfaisal University College of Medicine and to assess first-year medical students' perceptions of this learning modality for the anatomy- and physiology-based blocks/courses in organ systems form of curriculum. A five-point Likert scale questionnaire was structured based on Kirkpatrick’s theory and assessed three major domains: reaction, learning, and behavior. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Cronbach’s α-coefficient tests were used to assess the validity and reliability of the construct, respectively. CFA showed an adequate validity of the survey and Cronbach’s α revealed an acceptable internal uniformity (0.69). A total of 185 respondents rated reaction, learning, and behavior toward introduction of TBL as 3.53 ± 1.01, 3.59 ± 1.12, and 3.57 ± 1.12, respectively. Excellent students rated TBL highly in all major domains compared with borderline students (reaction, behavior, and learning domains with P values of <0.049, <0.035, and <0.031, respectively). Students who had prior teamwork experience rated TBL higher in terms of their learning experience compared with those who were rarely involved in team work. This study demonstrated that Alfaisal University first-year medical students perceived TBL positively as a teaching and learning strategy for functional anatomy, and prior involvement in teamwork and academic performance correlates with higher ratings of TBL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American Physiological Society (APS) Teaching Section annually honors an educator through its Claude Bernard Distinguished Lecture at the Experimental Biology meeting. Since I knew about my selection for almost a year, I had a long time to think about what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. The theme of my presentation was "nothing in education makes sense except in the light of student learning." My presentation began with a video of my "And, But, Therefore" description of my educational scholarship (see Randy Olson Great Challenges Day at TEDDED 2013, Ref. 10). "Physiology is the basic foundation of all the health professions AND physiology can be hard for students to figure out BUT many physiology courses expect students to memorize a large number of facts; THEREFORE, my scholarship is to help students learn physiology better for the long-term with various types of student centered learning opportunities." To stress the goal of student centered learning, my brief video was followed by a 2-min video of one of my students describing her experiences with student centered learning in one of my two-semester Advanced Human Physiology classes. Since I have been convinced that Randy Olson is an expert on science communication (11), the rest of my presentation was the story about how I have evolved from a sage-on-the-stage lecturer into a student-centered learning facilitator. I have chosen Olson's "And, But, Therefore" approach to narrative for this written version of key aspects of the presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team-based learning (TBL) is a teaching pedagogy for flipping the classroom that moves the focus of the classroom from the instructor conveying course concepts via lecture to the application of concepts by student teams. It has been used extensively in lecture courses; however, there is little evidence of its use in laboratory courses. The purpose of this report is to describe the implementation of TBL in a graduate exercise physiology laboratory course. Using TBL in a graduate laboratory course was very successful and well received by both the students and instructor. Students reported increased content learning, skill development, and retention. They took on the responsibility for learning and were more accountable. The learners drove the process and were guided by the instructor rather than through instructor-centered delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined whether requiring an individual readiness assurance test (iRAT) before a team readiness assurance test (tRAT) would benefit students in becoming better problem solvers in physiology. It was tested in the form of tRAT scores, the time required to complete the tRAT assignment, and individual performance on the unit examinations. Students in one section were given the iRAT at the beginning of the team-based learning session. The same set of questions was given to students as their tRAT immediately after their iRAT. Students in the second section were not given the iRAT before the tRAT. This pattern was reversed for the next scheduled team-based learning activity between the two sections. We found that the section having both the iRAT and tRAT scored higher on the tRAT and completed their assignments in less time than the section with the tRAT alone. This suggests that the tRAT combined with the iRAT is an effective team-based approach to the teaching of physiology compared with the tRAT alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Team-based learning (TBL) is an interactive and analytic teaching strategy. TBL is a learner-centered strategy that uses a very structured individual and group accountability process and requires small groups to work together to solve problems. This study served to investigate whether the TBL concept could be modified and adopted to the fifth-year cornea module of an ophthalmology course. Questionnaires (using a Likert scale of 1-5) were distributed to 169 fifth-year medical students attending the cornea module applied as TBL in an ophthalmology course. The questionnaire consisted of two categories: the TBL format (7 items) and an open-ended question about the class (1 item). Feedback was then evaluated. The majority of students felt that modified TBL sessions were better at fulfilling learning objectives (121 students, 71.59%), enabled better understanding (134 students, 79.28%), were more interesting (146 students, 86.39%), ensured greater student participation (123 students, 72.78%), and involved greater effort on the part of students (148 students, 87.57%) compared with traditional teaching methods. Most of the students (129 students, 76.33%) agreed that more such sessions should be organized in the future. In conclusion, after adjustments to improve weaknesses, such as the short time allocation and students' lack of prior background, the outcomes of this modified TBL approach on the cornea module of an ophthalmology course provide a good basis for its continuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel educational tool helps teach intestinal absorption in physiology-We have designed an interesting educational tool to help sophomores learn intestinal absorption in physiology course. In the study group (2019), 51 sophomores from biomedical engineering were encouraged to learn the intestinal absorption knowledge through reading materials and group discussion. Then, using the form of flipped class, they stepped on the podium and simulated and explained the absorption processes with designed paper props as educational tool. In contrast, the control group (2018), 52 sophomores from the same specialty had taken the same professional courses before. The result of theoretical test showed the average score in the study group was higher than that in the control group. The questionnaire analysis showed the positive role of the education tool in their learning efficacy. To sum up, using our tool has achieved better teaching effects than the traditional lecture.

Recently, the Occupational Therapy Department requested a custom-designed medical physiology course for the students in the new occupational therapy doctoral program. The first author, a physiologist with extensive experience in teaching both undergraduate preprofessional and medical students in human physiology, was recruited to design and implement the course. The course was designed to be consistent with the constructivist philosophy that guides the occupational therapy curriculum. The course was offered for the first time during fall/spring 2015/2016 and included both first- and second-year occupational therapy doctoral students. A number of anonymous assessment tools were used to evaluate students' perceptions regarding the effectiveness of various pedagogies used in the course in enhancing their learning. A summative course assessment survey with comments was used at the end of the course. This paper describes the model of course design and the student feedback, which generated some suggestions for improvement of the course. This approach in designing a new course for a new disciplinary group of students should be helpful to other faculty involved in developing courses for health career programs populated by students with variable physiology backgrounds and different educational needs. The final relevant feedback from the course would be to have the students evaluate the usefulness of the course to their future careers immediately following their certification examinations in a year or two and during their subsequent clinical experiences; however, that information will likely be more difficult to obtain., (Copyright © 2017 the American Physiological Society.)