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Using real-world examples of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase student confidence in their scientific literacy skills.

ABSTRACT: Over the last few decades, there has been a shift in the classroom from lecture-based to active learning settings with the argument that students retain more information when they are involved in the learning process. This correlation is even stronger when the active learning setting incorporates a real-world or personal connection. Using active learning activities that develop students' ability to comprehend primary scientific literature is particularly important in the field of immunology, due to the rapid expansion of information in the field, which has been further accelerated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By nature, immunology is interdisciplinary, requiring an integrated knowledge of concepts from several scientific disciplines to understand complex immune processes. Engaging undergraduate students through the use of primary literature can improve scientific literacy, develop critical thinking, and enhance understanding of complex topics. To explore this, we utilized a group learning activity in an introductory immunology course that incorporated both a coronavirus-related review and COVID-19 clinical research article. We found that this learning activity significantly enhanced student confidence in key scientific literacy skills: reading scientific literature, clearly explaining relevant points, and describing conclusions generated from the data. Moreover, all students reported that they enjoyed the activity and that it helped them understand more about the current COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the immune response.

SUBMITTER: Anderson AE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7756788 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Using real-world examples of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase student confidence in their scientific literacy skills.

Anderson Ashlyn E AE Justement Louis B LB Bruns Heather A HA

Biochemistry and molecular biology education : a bimonthly publication of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 20201102 6

Over the last few decades, there has been a shift in the classroom from lecture-based to active learning settings with the argument that students retain more information when they are involved in the learning process. This correlation is even stronger when the active learning setting incorporates a real-world or personal connection. Using active learning activities that develop students' ability to comprehend primary scientific literature is particularly important in the field of immunology, due ...[more]

PMID: 33137848

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Project description:Background: Communicating interprofessionally using the telephone is an essential skill within pharmacy practice. Student pharmacists' ability to perform this task effectively and efficiently may be hindered by generational changes, social anxiety, and very few opportunities to practice these skills. Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop and implement a simulation allowing students to practice interprofessional communication and assess the simulation's impact on students' confidence in providing pharmacy-related interventions to another health care professional via telephone. Methods: Faculty developed a simulation focused on interprofessional telephone communication. Baseline student information was collected to quantify pharmacy work experience in terms of practice setting, duration of employment, and skills. Presimulation and postsimulation surveys evaluated self-assessed telephone-related skills, attitudes, and confidence. Quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive statistics. Qualitative data were evaluated through a thematic analysis of students' reflective responses to 2 open-ended questions. Results: Of the 53 pharmacy students that participated in the simulation, 44 (83%) and 43 (81%) completed the anonymous presimulation and postsimulation surveys. Students significantly improved as reflected in the following response: "I have confidence in my ability to provide pharmacy-related interventions to another health care professional in a logical and concise manner via telephone call." Significant improvement also occurred in the ability to work independently, communicate an order change to another health care professional, justify recommendations, answer a drug information question, and discuss recommendations in a logical and concise manner. Conclusion: The simulation discussed in this article provided students an opportunity to practice interprofessional telephone communication in a low-risk environment and resulted in significant growth in confidence and skills.

Project description:ObjectivesWe aim to build a students' own engagement in original microbiological course-based undergraduate research experience (CUREs) model served two research and teaching scientific purposes including students' scientific literacy skills and instructors' role, which could further be applied as contribution to broader scientific knowledge and conduct novel research in their future research experience and careers.MethodsWe describe a student-driven CUREs model on the microorganism species in female vaginal using general bacterial culture techniques and high-throughput 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing to enable students to center experimental research method under the direction of instructors. A total of 8 undergraduate students and 5 instructors from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine participated in the project. The CUREs were divided in four operating scopes: project planning, implementation, summarizing and feedback phases. Instructors help students to develop learning research goals.ResultsThis project helped students to gain "hard skills" experiences in scientific theoretical research process and technical practices. Students reached the conclusion that Lactobacillus species dominated the primary vaginal microbiota in reproductive-age women, 16S rRNA sequencing is a method widely applied for microbiology detection. CUREs also increased students' engagement in scientific experiments and promote 3 learning goals in "soft skills": (1) Develop students' self-study and efficacy ability, expression capability and professional research communication skills; (2) Strengthen students' motivation and ownership in science research, overcoming failure, benefitting persistence and patience, building professional science identity, competence, and confidence in collaboration, implement spirit of rigorous and carefulness; (3) Obtain authorship, independent and logical thinking capability, summarizing ability and confidence enhancement. Instructors proposed guiding research question for the students and determine evidence in achieving pedagogical goals in CUREs.ConclusionsOur microbiological CUREs project served two scientific purposes: research and teaching, which increase students' engagement in promoting learning gains in scientific research skills, ownership, identity development, and spirit of motivation, self-efficacy, persistence, collaboration, communication, as well as opportunities to make relevant scientific discoveries. These abilities equipped them with essential foundation for the subsequent collaborative experiments and future scientific study.

Project description:BackgroundRadiology is an important aspect of medicine to which medical students often do not receive sufficient exposure. The aim of this project was to determine whether the integration of an innovative e-learning module on chest x-ray interpretation of the heart would enhance the radiological interpretive skills, and improve the confidence, of first year graduate entry medical students.MethodsAll first-year graduate entry (all students had a prior university degree) medical students at the University of Limerick (n?=?152) during academic year 2015-16 were invited to participate in this study. An assessment instrument was developed which consisted of 5 radiological cases to be interpreted over a designated and supervised 15-min time period. Students underwent a pre-, mid- and post-intervention assessment of their radiology interpretative skills. An online e-module was provided following the pre-test and additional practice cases were provided following the mid-intervention test. Assessment scores and confidence levels were compared pre-, mid- and post-intervention.ResultsThe overall performance (out of a total score of 25) for the 87 students who completed all three assessments increased from 13.2 (SD 3.36) pre-intervention to 14.3 (SD 2.97) mid-intervention to 15.8 (SD 3.40) post-intervention. This change over time was statistically significant (p?<?0.001) with a medium effect size (eta-squared?=?0.35). Increases from pre- to post-intervention were observed in each of the five areas assessed, although performance remained poor in diagnosis post-intervention. Of the 118 students who provided feedback after the intervention, 102 (86.4%) stated that they would recommend the resource to a colleague to improve their interpretative skills.ConclusionsThis study suggests that early exposure to e-learning radiology modules is beneficial in undergraduate medical school curricula. Further studies are encouraged to assess how long the improvement may last before attrition.

Dataset Information

Using real-world examples of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase student confidence in their scientific literacy skills.

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Using real-world examples of the COVID-19 pandemic to increase student confidence in their scientific literacy skills.

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