Redesigning a course to help students achieve higher-order cognitive thinking skills: from goals and mechanics to student outcomes

Abstract

Here we describe a 4-yr course reform and its outcomes. The upper-division neurophysiology course gradually transformed from a traditional lecture in 2004 to a more student-centered course in 2008, through the addition of evidence-based active learning practices, such as deliberate problem-solving practice on homework and peer learning structures, both inside and outside of class. Due to the incremental nature of the reforms and absence of pre-reform learning assessments, we needed a way to retrospectively assess the effectiveness of our efforts. To do this, we first looked at performance on 12 conserved exam questions. Students performed significantly higher post-reform on questions requiring lower-level cognitive skills and those requiring higher-level cognitive skills. Furthermore, student performance on conserved questions was higher post-reform in both the top and bottom quartiles of students, although lower-quartile student performance did not improve until after the first exam. To examine student learning more broadly, we also used Bloom's taxonomy to quantify a significant increase in the Bloom's level of exams, with students performing equally well post-reform on exams that had over twice as many questions at higher cognitive skill levels. Finally, we believe that four factors provided critical contributions to the success of the course reform, including: transformation efforts across multiple course components, alignment between formative and evaluative course materials, student buy-in to course instruction, and instructional support. This reform demonstrates both the effectiveness of incorporating student-centered, active learning into our course, and the utility of using Bloom's level as a metric to assess course reform.

Core concepts in physiology: teaching homeostasis through pattern recognition

“…Most of the resultant publications focus on expanding the broad core concepts of structure-function relationships, energy, information, homeostasis, and evolution into lists of manageable learning goals (8-10) and methods for assessing whether students understand and can apply core concepts (7,(11)(12)(13). Relatively few papers have tackled the issue of specific, course-wide instructional strategies for including core concepts throughout a physiology course, rather than simply introducing them at the start and periodically reviewing them whenever examples arise during the standard "march through the organ systems" (7,14). In this article we describe how we integrated the core concept of homeostasis into a course by teaching students to recognize the basic pattern of a homeostatic mechanism whenever it occurred in a physiological scenario (6) and by giving them practice in looking for the pattern in unfamiliar descriptions of physiological events.…”

The HOTSHOT taxonomy and a signature pedagogy framework for operating department practice: The juxtaposition to the academic apartheid surrounding higher order thinking

“…Whilst acknowledging the six categories of Bloom’s taxonomy, his critics cast doubt on the actuality of a sequential, hierarchical link (Anderson & Karthwohl 2001). Critics caution that academics will interpret Bloom’s taxonomy as a hierarchy and dismiss, the first two levels of the taxonomy (‘knowledge’ and ‘comprehension’) due to the perception that they represent a lesser form of understanding (Anderson & Karthwohl 2001, Fadul 2009, Flannery 2007, Casagrand & Semsar 2017, Morshead 1965). Bloom’s taxonomy portrays learning as hierarchal, yet Williams (2017)counters that learning is fluid.…”

An integrated 2-year clinical skills peer tutoring scheme in a UK-based medical school: perceptions of tutees and peer tutors

“…Tutors are also able to reinforce their knowledge of the topic being taught while developing teaching skills and receiving constructive feedback. 11 During this process, some faculty members suggest that inexperienced peer tutors can impart inaccurate information. 12 However, training peer tutors thoroughly and introducing an evaluation process are suggested ways to tackle this.…”