Alignment of Learning Objectives, Assessments and Active Learning to Promote Critical Thinking in a First Year Medical Physiology Course: Lessons Learned

Adv Physiol Educ. 2024 Mar 21. doi: 10.1152/advan.00096.2023. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTMedical students must be adept at critical thinking to successfully meet the learning objectives of their pre-clinical coursework. To encourage student success on assessments, the course director of a first- year medical physiology course emphasized the use of learning objectives that were explicitly aligned with formative assessments in class. The course director introduced the physiology discipline, learning objectives and evidence-based methods of studying to students on the first day of class. Thereafter, class sessions started with a review of the learning objectives for that session and included active learning opportunities such as retrieval practice. The instructor provided short answer formative assessments aligned with the learning objectives, intended to help the students apply and integrate the concepts. Mid semester, students received a link to an online survey with questions on studying habits, class attendance and student engagement. After finals, students were invited to participate in focus groups about their class experience. A qualitative researcher moderated focus groups, recorded responses and analyzed the narrative data. Of 175 students, 95 submitted anonymous online surveys. Student engagement was significantly correlated with in-person class attendance (r= 0.26, T=2.5, p=0.01) and the completion of open-ended formative assessments (r=0.33, T=3.3, p = 0.001). Foc...
Source: Adv Physiol Educ - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Source Type: research