110 - "Cheating" to Academic Success: Can Knowledge of Kolb's Cycle and a Cheat Sheet Improve Educational Outcomes for Biomedical Engineering Students Studying Anatomy

Poster Board Number: 110
There are separate poster presentation times for odd and even posters.
Odd poster #s – first hour
Even poster #s – second hour

Abstract Body : David A. Kolb described four stages of learning that must occur for students to become competent in their discipline. These stages are active experimentation, concrete experience, reflective observation, and abstract conceptualization. Although presented linearly, the four stages represent a cycle where students may begin at any stage, but effective learning requires the students to complete the cycle. Competency in a subject matter improves each time a student completes the cycle. Anatomy education adequately supports students in the active experimentation and concrete experience phases of Kolb’s learning cycle, however, reflection and conceptualization are less emphasized in the classroom and typically relegated to individual study. Based on the positive outcomes that occur when students learn how to learn, we aimed to identify a minimal intervention that aligned with a pedagogical concept, i.e., Kolb’s cycle, and explained the concept to inform students on how effective learning happens. Once informed, we developed a means to apply the theory to an already existing part of the curriculum: the midterm cheat sheet. In addition to providing students with extra information that they can use on tests; cheat sheets have shown to help mitigate test anxiety and could provide extra accommodations to struggling students. The purpose of the study is to investigate if reimagining the purpose of a cheat sheet using rudimentary pedagogical theories improves the academic success of biomedical engineering students who are enrolled in a combination undergraduate-graduate anatomy and physiology (A&P) course at the University of British Columbia. We hypothesize that explaining fundamental pedagogical theories such as Kolb’s cycle for learning and spaced repetition to students and inviting them to use their cheat sheet as a means of applying those theories will provide them with more opportunities to reflect and conceptualize A&P concepts. Therefore, improving educational outcomes.
Students enrolled in the A&P course were allotted a single cheat sheet for both midterms where they were free to put any information they wish to refer to during the tests. Little tested content was shared between tests. Prior to the first midterm, students were provided with no information pertaining to Kolb’s cycle. After the first midterm, students were informed about Kolb’s cycle and spaced repetition, their impacts on successful educational outcomes, and how the process of creating a cheat sheet relates to Kolb’s theory. After the discussion, students were invited to view creating their cheat sheet as a study tool as opposed to an examination aid.
Many students believe that the benefit of a cheat sheet is strictly for providing comfort and extra information that they could not memorize. However, many educators recognize that a significant degree of learning can occur simply through creating the resource. It is possible that consciously deciding what should and should not be put on a student’s cheat sheet may be sufficient to satisfy the reflection stage of Kolb’s cycle of learning, while the act of consolidating the information onto a single page may help satisfy the conceptualization stage. Recontextualizing activities to better align with pedagogical concepts could provide students with a stronger incentive to engage with these activities appropriately. We hope that this intervention provides educators with an educational activity that can be implemented easily alongside any formal examination.