Use of Structural Assessment of Knowledge for Outcomes Assessment in the Neuroscience Classroom.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Stevenson JL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5105962 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:We compiled a list of nearly 300 neuroscience terms and list their language of origin (typically Latin or Greek), their literal meaning, and their pronunciation in a table. The table was distributed to students in an undergraduate neuroscience class a few weeks before the first examination. A follow-up survey asked students how long they spent with the handout, and also assessed whether they thought it helped them better understand the terms, apply the terms, and whether they thought it helped them enough to get a higher grade on the exam. Results were positive: nearly 78% of students used the table while reviewing the material, and these students overwhelmingly reported that the table helped them better understand and apply the terms. However, students were equally split on whether the handout resulted in a better grade on the first exam. It was our premise that better understanding the derivation of the words can help students make associations between the terms and their meanings/functions. This handout can be used in any undergraduate neuroscience to help students better understand the complex terminology associated with the material.
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Project description:While both federal agencies and professional associations emphasize the importance of neuroscience outreach, this goal seldom reaches the undergraduate neuroscience classroom. However, incorporating outreach into undergraduate neuroscience classes is an efficient means to reach not only future scientists, but also the future practitioners (K-12 teachers, social service workers, etc.) with whom neuroscientists hope to communicate. It also provides a vehicle for faculty members to engage in outreach activities that are typically un- or under-rewarded in faculty reviews. In this article, a Neuroscience Community Outreach Project (NCOP) is described. The project has been used in three offerings of a Cognitive Neuroscience course at a small liberal arts college, shared and applied at a large state university, and presented at a regional Society for Neuroscience meeting as an example of outreach opportunities for faculty. The NCOP assignment is a student-driven, modular activity that can be easily incorporated into existing neuroscience course frameworks. The assignment builds on student interests and connections in the community, providing a way for faculty at institutions without formal outreach programs to incorporate neuroscience outreach into the classroom and connect students to online resources. Several sample student projects are described across three broad domains (K-12 outreach, presentations to social service organizations, and media / popular press presentations). The article ends with a set of suggestions addressing common faculty concerns about incorporating community outreach into the undergraduate neuroscience classroom.
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Project description:The ability to transmit, organize, and query information digitally has brought with it the challenge of how to best use this power to facilitate scientific inquiry. Today, few information systems are able to provide detailed answers to complex questions about neuroscience that account for multiple spatial scales, and which cross the boundaries of diverse parts of the nervous system such as molecules, cellular parts, cells, circuits, systems and tissues. As a result, investigators still primarily seek answers to their questions in an increasingly densely populated collection of articles in the literature, each of which must be digested individually. If it were easier to search a knowledge base that was structured to answer neuroscience questions, such a system would enable questions to be answered in seconds that would otherwise require hours of literature review. In this article, we describe NeuroLex.org, a wiki-based website and knowledge management system. Its goal is to bring neurobiological knowledge into a framework that allows neuroscientists to review the concepts of neuroscience, with an emphasis on multiscale descriptions of the parts of nervous systems, aggregate their understanding with that of other scientists, link them to data sources and descriptions of important concepts in neuroscience, and expose parts that are still controversial or missing. To date, the site is tracking ~25,000 unique neuroanatomical parts and concepts in neurobiology spanning experimental techniques, behavioral paradigms, anatomical nomenclature, genes, proteins and molecules. Here we show how the structuring of information about these anatomical parts in the nervous system can be reused to answer multiple neuroscience questions, such as displaying all known GABAergic neurons aggregated in NeuroLex or displaying all brain regions that are known within NeuroLex to send axons into the cerebellar cortex.
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Project description:Preterm and sick newborn infants undergo several painful procedures during their hospital stay, potentially leading to short- and long-term negative consequences. Pain assessment should be performed regularly to provide optimal pain management. Nurses' knowledge of and attitude toward neonatal pain assessment affect how pain is assessed and managed in the clinical situation. The aim of this study was to explore Swedish nurses' perception, knowledge, and use of neonatal pain assessment. This descriptive, cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted across all Swedish neonatal units (n = 38). Respondents were chosen through convenience sampling by the head nurses at each unit. Ten nurses from each unit were asked to complete the survey, which contained both closed and open questions. A majority of the units (30/38; 79%) participated and 232 surveys were returned, a response rate of 61%. Of the nurses, 91% thought that neonatal pain assessment was important. Many nurses mentioned various difficulties with pain assessment and concerns that the scales used might not assess pain correctly. About half of the nurses considered themselves to have enough knowledge of neonatal pain assessment. Those who reported having enough knowledge of pain assessment viewed the pain scales used at their units more positively. Of the nurses, 74% reported using a pain assessment scale several times per work shift. Pain management guidelines were available according to 75% of nurses, but only 53% reported that the guidelines were followed. Although nurses in general expressed a positive attitude toward pain assessment scales, this was not necessarily evident in their clinical practice. Lack of knowledge, available or accessible guidelines, or concerns regarding the validity of available pain scales seemed to limit their use.
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Project description:Paralleling two decades of growth in the emergent field known as educational neuroscience is an increasing concern that educational practices and programs should be evidence-based, however, the idea that neuroscience could potentially influence education is controversial. One of the criticisms, regarding applications of the findings produced in this discipline, concerns the artificiality of neuroscientific experiments and the oversimplified nature of the tests used to investigate cognitive processes in educational contexts. The simulations may not account for all of the variables present in real classroom activities. In this study, we aim to get a step closer to the formation of data-supported classroom methodologies by employing functional near-infrared spectroscopy in various experimental paradigms. First, we present two hyperscanning scenarios designed to explore realistic interdisciplinary contexts, i.e., the classroom. In a third paradigm, we present a case study of a single student evaluated with functional near-infrared spectroscopy and mobile eye-tracking glasses. These three experiments are performed to provide proofs of concept for the application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy in scenarios that more closely resemble authentic classroom routines and daily activities. The goal of our study is to explore the potential of this technique in hopes that it offers insights in experimental design to investigate teaching-learning processes during teacher-student interactions.
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Project description:IntroductionThe ability to apply knowledge gained in neuroscience coursework to a clinical scenario is found to be difficult by many medical students. Neuroscience is both important for future clinical practice and an area frequently tested on USMLE Step 1 examinations.MethodsSecond-year medical students created a peer-led flipped classroom to help first-year students practice applying medical neuroscience course information to clinical situations and demonstrate how that information might be tested in board-style questions. The second-year students designed a series of board-style questions that included explanations for both the correct and incorrect answers. We divided the first-year students (n = 80) into small groups during the flipped classroom sessions, where they were led by second-year medical students in discussion about the questions and clinical situations.ResultsStudents reported agreement that the session addressed gaps in their knowledge and provided them with useful critical thinking skills for approaching board-style questions (83% and 81% agreed or strongly agreed, respectively).DiscussionThe flipped classroom improved student confidence in both applying neuroscience concepts to clinical scenarios and to board-style vignette questions.
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Project description:Background: Baylor College of Medicine provides a classroom-based implicit bias workshop to all third-year medical students to increase students' awareness of their unconscious bias and develop strategies for reducing health care disparities. The workshop meets our immediate goals and objectives. However, we are unsure if the benefit would be long-term or diminish over time. Methods: To examine the concept retention from the implicit bias classroom workshop, we administered a self-developed seven-item seven-point Likert-scale survey to our medical students at pre-, post-, and one-year post-workshop attendance. Results: The data set was comprised of survey results from two cohorts of our third and fourth-year medical students from 2018 to 2020 and included 289 completed records at three measurement points. The data included: Student Identifiers, Sex, Race/Ethnicity, Student Enrollment Type, Cohort, and three repeated measures results for each of the seven items, which were documented in wide format. The data may be of interest to those who wish to examine how factors including elapsed time, race, and sex may associate with attitudes and understandings of implicit bias following related training, and those interested in analytical methods on longitudinal research in general.
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