Interactive Table Exercise of Applied Morphology (I‐TEAM): An approach to Enhance Engagement of Medical Students in a Practical Anatomy Session

Abstract

IntroductionActive student engagement remains a challenge for educators, particularly those who are involved in teaching practical anatomy sessions. Medical education research has linked engaged learning among medical students to the promotion of critical thinking and problem‐solving. How educators manage medical student learning and intermingle with students, in a practical session, affects students' engagement.MethodsAt California University of Science and Medicine, School of Medicine, we have developed an innovative interdisciplinary environment for learning gross anatomy, histology, embryology, pathology, physiology, and microbiology, that has been named I‐TEAM (Interactive Table Exercise of Applied Morphology). This interdisciplinary environment creates a unique setting where medical students, through hands‐on learning experiences utilizing technology to correlate anatomy to different imaging modalities, virtual microscopy, and laparoscopic anatomy, are able to apply critical thinking skills to solving problems in these different disciplines. The use of multiple modalities within an interdisciplinary learning environment empowers medical students to view this as an educational fascinating part of training, while also offering appropriate fundamental links between basic and clinical sciences. This study addresses several questions about how to integrate different teaching modalities in a practical session, how to incorporate problem‐solving, how to test for critical thinking, and more importantly, if an interdisciplinary laboratory environment can effectively improve medical student engagement in a laboratory session?SignificanceI‐TEAM could be the solution for many educators who have thrived to find new methods to stimulate active learning by deviating away from the old‐style pedagogies to more student‐driven approaches. This study will be of interest to educators involved in curricular design and development whose goals are to enhance student engagement in anatomy laboratory sessions.Support or Funding InformationSelf‐fundedThis abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.