Game Day: A Board Game to Integrate Anatomy with Other Basic and Clinical Sciences for the Classroom
Authors: Ferrigno Christopher , Katrikh Aaron Z , Richards Maureen 
Published: June 2021

Introduction

Many medical and allied health institutions are moving away from the traditional lecture‐based approaches. Instead, students are educated through other models including case‐based collaborative learning and team‐based learning where students can apply and integrate their newly acquired basic and clinical science through small group activities. Substantial challenges for educators using these learning approaches include: delivering new and engaging activities, effective integration of content from basic and clinical disciplines, efficient use of class time, and scaling the activity to the level of the learner. Here we designed an exciting and innovative game activity to integrate clinically‐focused anatomy with other disciplines and to mitigate student disengagement.

Aim

To deliver a challenging and engaging classroom activity that integrates different basic and clinical science disciplines, allowing students to apply and assess their knowledge of a body system or region.

Methods

In this IRB approved study, first year medical students participated in a board game (Fig. 1) consisting of 30 challenges related to the gastrointestinal system. The board game activity was developed by experts from microbiology/immunology, anatomy, surgery, pathology, pharmacology, pathophysiology, and physiology. It was one of eleven case‐based basic science sessions that were included in a 6 week long course focused on the gastrointestinal system. The goal was to create single or integrated discipline challenges that took on a variety of formats. Using a game board and points system, student teams completed 30 challenges (Table 1) by applying high yield content while accumulating points as they progressed through the gastrointestinal tract. Students then evaluated the success of the session through a survey.

Results

100% of students (n=133) who participated in the board game activity completed the survey. Overall, 84.3% of students endorsed that the learning objectives for this module were met (27.6% strongly agree) and 81.5% endorsed that the overall quality of this session was excellent (33.3% strongly agree). On average, the overall quality rating of the session was 4.66(+/− 0.8) out of a 6 point Likert scale, a score that was higher than all 11 sessions in this course, and well above the mean satisfaction rating of 3.77 +/− 0.7 for all 11 sessions in this course.

117 of 133 students left a narrative evaluation of the self‐study materials, activity, or their experience with their classroom facilitator. Of the 75 comments directly related to the activity, 34 stated the activity was “awesome”, “good”, or “best of the year so far”, 12 remarked that the activity was highly engaging and/or interactive, and 11 stated the activity was fun. The most commonly received negative comment was that the activity too long.

Discussion

This game‐format activity provides an engaging review of basic science and clinical disciplines that can be scaled to the ability of the learner and adapted to accommodate different disciplines. It can be easily developed by content experts and deployed with minimal faculty training, contributing to the collection of in‐class activities for health science curricula.

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.