Sonia Saluja¹
Romeo Batacan¹
1 CQUniversity

Students often consider Neuroscience as one of the ‘difficult’ medical sciences (Schon et a, 2002). Neuroscience is content-heavy and requires students to memorise vast amounts of information as well as conceptualise the application of this content to complex neurological disorders. Building a conceptual understanding of neuroscience within contexts of different health professions is essential for students to successfully progress as healthcare providers. 

Through the implementation of a constructivist learning environment (Tam 2000), the transformation of student learning and satisfaction was achieved to enable students from diverse health professions to apply clinical concepts in neuroscience specific to their future health profession. This presentation will summarise the challenges faced by students, and how the use of innovative assessment strategies contextualised to diverse student disciplines transformed student learning in a service-taught subject across a sustained period of 7 years. 

The enrolled students faced multiple challenges. They were from five diverse disciplines, on- campus and online study modes were available, the subject was delivered across seven campuses, and importantly students lacked experience working with patients in the clinical environment. Widespread dissatisfaction with assessment tasks and the relevance of neuroscience to the student’s chosen health profession was evident. Coherence, an essential aspect of instructional design, was required as part of the constructive alignment to support the development of conceptual understanding (Romero and Kalmpourtzi, 2020). Assessment design was integral for students to link theory with practice and apply key clinical concepts without prior clinical experience. Innovative design of assessment tools in basic medical sciences can enable students from diverse disciplines to apply clinical concepts in neuroscience to their future health profession. 

References (maximum three)