Teaching Critical Thinking in Medical Biochemistry to First‐Year Medical Students through Concept Mapping

Demonstrating the importance of basic science in the practice of medicine presents a challenge for the majority of medical science educators. A curriculum change of medical biochemistry was implemented to include concept mapping as a visual strategy to enhance the analytical and critical thinking skills during clinical case‐based workshops. A rubric is used to give detailed feedback and provides guidance to students. A number of clinical cases are judiciously selected to illustrate specific topics. Each learning team of students (five to seven) meets with a faculty member to discuss the concept map prior to the workshop. During such meetings, all members are asked to participate in explaining their reasoning and decision‐making and to thereby justify the flow of the concept map. This activity gives students the opportunity to demonstrate their capacity to visualize their knowledge using concept map construction. This additional method of teaching has contributed to the increased scores on board exam. Indeed, the school's average biochemistry board exam score (COMLEX step 1) went from below the national average before the change of the curriculum to above the national average after the change was implemented. We firmly believe, as indicated in other studies, that having included a formative assessment using concept mapping has helped increase students’ deep understanding of the major concepts of medical biochemistry and equipped our students with critical thinking skills.