Improving Gross Anatomy Learning in the Podiatric Anatomy Lab with the Use of Peer Teaching

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

Abstract Body : Human anatomy courses with a cadaver-based laboratory component require sufficient and close supervision of students. Anatomy courses in health science institutions often lack trained anatomy faculty, which often leads to innovative methods of teaching relevant knowledge and skills to the students. Peer teaching has shown to be an effective learning tool and has been incorporated into pre-clinical and clinical health science courses in various ways. Previously, it has been discussed that peer teaching in medical anatomy has led to the success of the peer teachers and learners' ability to communicate clearly, improving the learning environment, and many other factors, but to our knowledge, no known studies have been conducted on the use of peer teaching in podiatric anatomy laboratory courses.

This study aimed to describe and analyze the introduction and implementation of assigned peer teaching in a first-year podiatric dissection-based anatomy laboratory course. Students were placed into groups and were assigned to teach and review material and previously completed dissections to other designated groups, which would rotate between laboratory weeks. Surveys were administered to the first-year cohort at the end of the course to evaluate the usefulness, utilization, merits, demerits, and perception of the peer teacher assignments on student communication skills, preparedness for lab, and learning of the material. The survey was distributed using the Qualtrics software and the anonymous link so that results could not be tied to individual students. Results were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively using T-tests and ANOVAs to measure correlation among specific survey questions relating to relevant topics (i.e., previous dissection experience and gained skills as a dissector with peer-teaching) and to test the significance of peer-teaching's effectiveness. Also analyzed were repeated topics and factors indicated in open-ended questions using group concept analyses.

Survey results displayed that 66.7% of students had prior experience with peer teaching, 66.7% agree or strongly agree that peer teaching improved their ability as a dissector, and 83% of students had no prior dissecting experience. Results further displayed that 100% of students agreed that peer teaching improved knowledge of anatomy and understanding of the topics they taught, and 83.3% thought it improved their retention of topics they taught. The most significant benefit of peer teaching was enhanced anatomy learning (100%), followed by experience teaching with peers and enhanced communication skills (66.7%).

Overall feedback suggested that the program created a learning environment that benefited the learning of anatomy and retention of the material through teaching. Utilizing this method in first-year anatomy teaching has provided a beneficial and suitable resource for teaching students in a laboratory setting, who themselves view the inclusion of peer-teaching as a positive element in their learning with additional value beyond simply learning the material. Future work includes modification of peer teaching and continual evaluation of the significance of peer teaching in podiatric dissection-based anatomy lab courses.