Premium
GRISTO: an integrated learning experience in Gross Anatomy and Histology for Dental Students, learning outcomes and student perspectives on curriculum change (532.4)
Author(s) -
Hoffmann Darren,
Swailes Nathan
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.28.1_supplement.532.4
Subject(s) - curriculum , virtual microscopy , medical education , gross anatomy , psychology , mathematics education , medicine , anatomy , pedagogy , pathology
In a major curriculum revision we unified two separate disciplines (Gross Anatomy and Histology) into a combined course with integrated methods of instruction and assessment (GRISTO). Through creative course design, we constructively aligned content, decreased didactic lectures and increased opportunity for student engagement, group work and self‐regulated learning (flipped classrooms, peer teaching, virtual labs). In doing so we improved sequencing and cohesion between Anatomy and Histology and removed unnecessary redundancy. Implementation of GRISTO recovered 50hrs/student in the curriculum. We also hypothesized that an integrated Anatomy and Histology learning experience would lead to improved learning outcomes and student satisfaction for both disciplines. To test this hypothesis we compared student performance in assessment tasks completed after participating in pre‐GRISTO (2011) and GRISTO (2012, 2013) learning experiences. Both disciplines exhibited a right‐shift in grade distributions for GRISTO students coupled with fewer failing grades. Learning outcomes were improved in Histology (2011: 82.5%, 2012: 85.6%, 2013: 87.1%) and unchanged in Anatomy (range 87.0‐87.2%). Focused course evaluations for GRISTO (2012: n=65, 2013: n=41) revealed a strong preference for an integrated learning experience (95%) and student ratings on standardized questions reached an all‐time high.