Assessing an effective undergraduate module teaching applied bioinformatics to biology students.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Madlung A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5764237 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Palliative care is central to the role of all clinical doctors. There is variability in the amount and type of teaching about palliative care at undergraduate level. Time allocated for such teaching within the undergraduate medical curricula remains scarce. Given this, the effectiveness of palliative care teaching needs to be known.ObjectivesTo evaluate the effectiveness of palliative care teaching for undergraduate medical students.DesignA systematic review was prepared according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidance. Screening, data extraction and quality assessment (mixed methods and Cochrane risk of bias tool) were performed in duplicate.Data sourcesEmbase, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Web of Science, ClinicalTrials.gov, Cochrane and grey literature in August 2019. Studies evaluating palliative care teaching interventions with medical students were included.Results1446 titles/abstracts and 122 full-text articles were screened. 19 studies were included with 3253 participants. 17 of the varied methods palliative care teaching interventions improved knowledge outcomes. The effect of teaching on clinical practice and patient outcomes was not evaluated in any study.ConclusionsThe majority of palliative care teaching interventions reviewed improved knowledge of medical students. The studies did not show one type of teaching method to be better than others, and thus no 'best way' to provide teaching about palliative care was identified. High quality, comparative research is needed to further understand effectiveness of palliative care teaching on patient care/clinical practice/outcomes in the short-term and longer-term.Prospero registration numberCRD42018115257.
| S-EPMC7482461 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundVideo consultations are increasingly used to communicate with patients, particularly during the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, training in video consultation skills receives scant attention in the literature. We sought to introduce this important topic to our undergraduate medical school curriculum.ObjectiveTo increase final year medical students' video consultation skills and knowledge.MethodsWe used Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) quality improvement methodology with a pre-post study design to develop a teaching session for 5th year medical students, informed by a literature review and online clinician survey. The 2 hour session comprised an introduction and three practical stations: patient selection and ethics, technology and example videos, and simulation. Subjective pre- and post-session confidence was reported by students across seven domains using 5-point scales (1: not at all confident; 5: extremely confident). Students and facilitators completed post-session feedback forms.ResultsThe 40 students and 3 facilitators who attended, over two separate teaching sessions, provided unanimously positive feedback. All students considered the session relevant. Subjective confidence ratings (n = 34) significantly increased from pre- to post-session (mean increase 1.78, p < 0.001).ConclusionsThe inaugural teaching session was well-received and subjective assessment measures showed improvement in taught skills. This pilot has informed a UK-wide multi-centre study with subjective and objective data collection.
| S-EPMC8317946 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Identity production is a complex process in which a person determines who he or she is via internal dialogue and sociocultural participation. Understanding identity production is important in biology education, because students' identities impact classroom experiences and their willingness to persist in the discipline. Thus, we suggest that educators foster spaces where students can engage in producing science identities that incorporate positive perceptions of who they are and what they have experienced. We used Holland's theory of identity and Urrieta's definitions of conceptual identity production (CIP) and procedural identity production (PIP) to explore the process of students' science identity production. We interviewed 26 students from five sections of a general biology course for majors at one higher education institution. The interview protocol included items about students' identities, influential experiences, perceptions of science, and perceptions of their classroom communities. From the interviews, we developed hierarchical coding schemes that focused on characterizing students' CIP and PIP. Here, we describe how students' socially constructed identities (race, gender, etc.) and their experiences may have impacted the production of their science identities. We found that authoring (i.e., making meaning of) experiences and recognition by others as a community member influenced students' science identity production.
| S-EPMC6812566 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A major research thrust in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is focused on how to retain students as STEM majors. The accumulation of seemingly insignificant negative experiences in STEM classes can, over time, lead STEM students to have a low sense of belonging in their disciplines, and this can lead to lower retention. In this paper, we explore how Judeo-Christian students in biology have experiences related to their religious identities that could impact their retention in biology. In 28 interviews with Judeo-Christian students taking undergraduate biology classes, students reported a religious identity that can conflict with the secular culture and content of biology. Some students felt that, because they are religious, they fall within a minority in their classes and would not be seen as credible within the biology community. Students reported adverse experiences when instructors had negative dispositions toward religion and when instructors were rigid in their instructional practices when teaching evolution. These data suggest that this may be a population susceptible to experiences of cultural conflict between their religious identities and their STEM identities, which could have implications for retention. We argue that more research should explore how Judeo-Christian students' experiences in biology classes influence their sense of belonging and retention.
| S-EPMC5332041 | biostudies-literature
Project description:With the development of the Internet and the growth of online resources, bioinformatics training for wet-lab biologists became necessary as a part of their education. This article describes a one-semester course 'Applied Bioinformatics Course' (ABC, http://abc.cbi.pku.edu.cn/) that the author has been teaching to biological graduate students at the Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences for the past 13 years. ABC is a hands-on practical course to teach students to use online bioinformatics resources to solve biological problems related to their ongoing research projects in molecular biology. With a brief introduction to the background of the course, detailed information about the teaching strategies of the course are outlined in the 'How to teach' section. The contents of the course are briefly described in the 'What to teach' section with some real examples. The author wishes to share his teaching experiences and the online teaching materials with colleagues working in bioinformatics education both in local and international universities.
| S-EPMC4239802 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesAccording to the CanMEDS' Scholar competency, physicians are expected to facilitate the learning of colleagues, patients and other health professionals. However, most medical students are not provided with formal opportunities to gain teaching experience with objective feedback.MethodsTo address this, the University's Medical Education Interest Group (MEIG) created a pilot teaching program in January 2015 entitled 'MedTalks'. Four 3-hour sessions were held at the University Faculty of Medicine, where first and second year medical students taught clinically oriented topics to undergraduate university students. Each extracurricular session included three 30-minute content lectures, and a 90-minute small group session on physical examination skills. Each medical student-teacher received formal feedback from undergraduate students and from faculty educators regarding teaching style, communication abilities, and professionalism. In addition, medical student-teachers self-evaluated their own teaching experience.ResultsOver 50 medical students from the University participated as medical student-teachers. Based on quantitative and qualitative evaluation surveys, 100% of medical students agreed that MedTalks was a useful way to develop teaching skills and 92% gained a greater confidence in individual teaching capabilities, based largely on the opportunity to gain experience (with feedback) in teaching roles.ConclusionsA program designed to give medical students multi-source teaching experience (lecture- and small group-based) and feedback on their teaching (from learners and Faculty observers, in addition to their own self-reflection) can improve medical student confidence and enthusiasm towards teaching. Future studies will clarify if medical student self-perceived enhancements in teaching ability can be corroborated by independent (Faculty, learner) observations of future teaching activity.
| S-EPMC5328353 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Undergraduate research can make a positive impact on science education. Unfortunately, the one student-one mentor paradigm of undergraduate research generates a wide range of variability in the student's experience and further limits its availability to a select few students. In contrast, a single faculty member can offer multiple undergraduate teaching positions that provide a consistent experience for the student. We attempted to combine the undergraduate research and teaching experiences in an internship practicum called Peer Instruction and Laboratory Occupational Training (PILOT). Students enrolled in PILOT served as teaching assistants for the upper division Quantitative Biological Methods (QBM) laboratory course. In addition, PILOT students worked on an independent lab project that provided them with hands-on training and supported the QBM course. The development of presentation and teaching skills was also emphasized in PILOT. These activities were designed to improve student communication skills, lab skills, and knowledge of molecular biology content. Here, we describe the PILOT curriculum and report the results of an anonymous assessment survey administered to 75 students who had completed PILOT in the previous five semesters. Our data indicate that PILOT provides an effective format to expand undergraduate opportunities for research and teaching experiences.
| S-EPMC3706164 | biostudies-other
Project description:BackgroundMedical education all over the country has been forced to shift to e-learning, mainly online classes. In this scenario, the medical education department (MEU) of a teaching hospital under a deemed university felt the need to study the satisfaction and usefulness of these classes, as perceived by the undergraduate medical students.MethodsQuestionnaire survey was planned. A specially designed questionnaire was created, keeping in mind, the study objectives. It was validated, and a pilot was conducted, for modifications and to calculate sample size. The questionnaire was administered by email as Google Forms. The responses, which included quantitative and qualitative responses, were analysed, and feedback points noted. Percentage level of satisfaction and usefulness was calculated with 95% confidence interval. To test the statistical significance of the association of satisfaction levels amongst students of different Phases, chi square test was used.ResultsOn a scale scoring for satisfaction, 53.6% scored moderate, 31% high, and 15.4% low satisfaction. 49.8% of the students were less satisfied about attending classes from home; 15.7% felt it was better. 57.1% of the students found the concept of online learning moderately useful, 31.4% found it minimally useful, 11.5%, highly useful.ConclusionsThe undergraduate medical students perceived moderate satisfaction and usefulness with the on-going online classes. They expressed the desire to resume routine physical classes, especially for practicals and clinics. Points of improvement of the online teaching-learning programme were also obtained. This study revealed sufficient feedback to be shared with all stakeholders, regarding improvements in the online classes.
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Project description:Since 2010, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's (EMBL) Heidelberg laboratory and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) have jointly run bioinformatics training courses developed specifically for secondary school science teachers within Europe and EMBL member states. These courses focus on introducing bioinformatics, databases, and data-intensive biology, allowing participants to explore resources and providing classroom-ready materials to support them in sharing this new knowledge with their students. In this article, we chart our progress made in creating and running three bioinformatics training courses, including how the course resources are received by participants and how these, and bioinformatics in general, are subsequently used in the classroom. We assess the strengths and challenges of our approach, and share what we have learned through our interactions with European science teachers.
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Project description:The core concept of genetic information flow was identified in recent calls to improve undergraduate biology education. Previous work shows that students have difficulty differentiating between the three processes of the Central Dogma (CD; replication, transcription, and translation). We built upon this work by developing and applying an analytic coding rubric to 1050 student written responses to a three-question item about the CD. Each response was previously coded only for correctness using a holistic rubric. Our rubric captures subtleties of student conceptual understanding of each process that previous work has not yet captured at a large scale. Regardless of holistic correctness scores, student responses included five or six distinct ideas. By analyzing common co-occurring rubric categories in student responses, we found a common pair representing two normative ideas about the molecules produced by each CD process. By applying analytic coding to student responses preinstruction and postinstruction, we found student thinking about the processes involved was most prone to change. The combined strengths of analytic and holistic rubrics allow us to reveal mixed ideas about the CD processes and provide a detailed picture of which conceptual ideas students draw upon when explaining each CD process.
| S-EPMC8246993 | biostudies-literature