Integration of Microbiology, Pharmacology, Immunology, and Infectious Disease Using Active Teaching and Self-Directed Learning

Natalie Steinel; Gregory C Palmer; Emily Nowicki; Ernestine Lee; Elizabeth Nelson; Marvin Whiteley; Michael W Lee

doi:10.1007/s40670-018-00689-8

Integration of Microbiology, Pharmacology, Immunology, and Infectious Disease Using Active Teaching and Self-Directed Learning

Med Sci Educ. 2019 Jan 18;29(1):315-324. doi: 10.1007/s40670-018-00689-8. eCollection 2019 Mar.

Authors

Natalie Steinel¹, Gregory C Palmer², Emily Nowicki³, Ernestine Lee⁴, Elizabeth Nelson⁵, Marvin Whiteley⁶, Michael W Lee^{5

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Affiliations

¹ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA USA.
² Institute of Environmental Sustainability, Loyola University, Chicago, IL USA.
³ Department of Science and Math, Curry College, Milton, MA USA.
⁴ Department of Population Health, Division of Family Medicine, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX USA.
⁵ Department of Medical Education, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX USA.
⁶ College of Sciences, Georgia Tech University, Atlanta, GA USA.
⁷ Department of Oncology, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX USA.
⁸ Live Strong Cancer Institutes, Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX USA.
⁹ Department of Medical Education and Live Strong Cancer Institutes, The University of Texas at Austin, Health Learning Building, 1501 Red River Street, MC: 0100, Austin, TX 78712 USA.

Abstract

In an era of decreasing basic science curriculum at medical schools, we sought to re-imagine how to optimally deliver three core basic science disciplines (microbiology, pharmacology, and immunology) together with infectious disease in a 5-week course. This course, developed as part of a new 1-year pre-clinical basic science curriculum at the recently established Dell Medical School (DMS) at the University of Texas at Austin, featured a fully integrated curriculum in which the majority of the sessions were team-taught. This course, in line with the goals and missions of DMS, presented material using primarily self-directed and active learning approaches. Here, we describe the format and content of the course. We present our strategy and rationale for selecting these particular learning modalities and topics for pre-class and in-class coverage, using educational and cognitive psychology literature as a guide. We also discuss how, based on feedback from both student evaluations and performance data, the course evolved over the first two iterations.

Keywords: Active learning; Basic sciences; Co-teaching; Flipped classrooms; Integrated curriculum; Problem based learning; Self-Direceted learning; Self-regulated learning.