D'Ambrosio Lisa M
Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2024 Dec 12;25(3):e0011024. doi: 10.1128/jmbe.00110-24. Epub 2024 Nov 6.
Learning in undergraduate immunology requires students to be able to retain knowledge, to apply information to new contexts, and to self-assess their understanding of concepts. These core competencies strengthen students' critical thinking and metacognitive skills which, in turn, enhances their ability to identify knowledge gaps and strategies to support future learning. Retrieval practice and feedback-driven metacognition are evidence-based teaching strategies that have been demonstrated to enhance knowledge retention and metacognition in a range of academic disciplines and levels of education, although their implementation and impact on learning in undergraduate immunology remain largely unexplored. To this end, I designed a modular "practice session" activity for a 12-week, upper-level, undergraduate immunology course that incorporates periodic retrieval practice and feedback-driven metacognition to support students' knowledge retention, application of information, and metacognitive skills. Near the end of the course, a survey was conducted to assess student perceptions on whether the activity supported learning and metacognition in immunology. Instructional resources are provided to facilitate easy adaptation of this modular activity to courses of diverse science disciplines and levels of study in higher education.
本科免疫学学习要求学生能够记住知识，将信息应用于新情境，并自我评估对概念的理解。这些核心能力强化了学生的批判性思维和元认知技能，进而提高他们识别知识差距以及支持未来学习的策略的能力。检索练习和反馈驱动的元认知是基于证据的教学策略，已被证明可提高一系列学科和教育水平中的知识保留和元认知，尽管它们在本科免疫学学习中的实施情况及其影响在很大程度上仍未得到探索。为此，我为一门为期12周的本科高级免疫学课程设计了一个模块化的“练习环节”活动，该活动纳入了定期检索练习和反馈驱动的元认知，以支持学生的知识保留、信息应用和元认知技能。在课程接近尾声时，进行了一项调查，以评估学生对该活动是否支持免疫学学习和元认知的看法。还提供了教学资源，以方便将这个模块化活动轻松改编用于高等教育中不同科学学科和学习水平的课程。
