Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-27-2020

Abstract

Human Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) classes historically have a high Drop-Fail-Withdraw (DFW) rate at institutions around the world. A&P classes at the University of Northern Colorado are no exception, with BIO 246 (Advanced Human Anatomy and Physiology) having a 24% DFW rate between 2015-2018 [1]. This class predominantly serves students in nursing and other allied health programs. Physiology topics are known to be challenging for students to learn, due to the difficulty of establishing effective study strategies for broad systems-level content. Our aim was to address these challenges by implementing Problem-Based Learning (PBL) as a part of the BIO 246 laboratory curriculum. BIO 246 is a 3-credit hour course that includes two one-hour lectures and one three-hour lab meeting weekly, and it is a required course for nursing and allied health majors at UNC. PBLs present students with ill-structured problems that can be solved by following a variety of inquiry paths and is further characterized by longitudinal group work. In medical education, PBLs are frequently used to train future physicians to integrate and apply knowledge about multiple body systems. Using an iterative, design-based research approach, we designed a similarly structured PBL for BIO 246 students at UNC to support their learning of physiology.

To investigate factors related to student learning in BIO 246, and to investigate whether PBL supports student learning, we are asking the research questions (RQ):

RQ1: How do student attitudes relate to learning outcomes?

RQ2: Is Problem-based Learning an effective pedagogical tool to improve systemic thinking and learning outcomes for undergraduate nursing and allied health students in anatomy & physiology?

Comments

2019-2020 Assessment Mini-Grant

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