Collaborative Critical Thinking Problem Sets Enhance Student Perceived Learning and Promote Student Practice Outside of the Classroom
Authors: Stokes Jennifer 
Published: May 2024

Collaborative learning and peer-to-peer teaching activities can greatly enhance student learning and engagement in the classroom. This work evaluates the implementation of an additional required class period dedicated to collaborative problem solving activities. A two-semester integrative upper-level anatomy and physiology course (Human Anatomy and Physiology 1 and 2) was revised for the 2022-2023 academic year from a 2 x 75-minute weekly schedule to a 3 x 75-minute weekly schedule to facilitate an extra class period each Friday dedicated to graded collaborative critical thinking worksheets called Problem Sets. Two Friday Problem Set sessions were scheduled for each unit, resulting in an additional 150 minutes of faculty-student contact time per unit and 8 Problem Sets per semester, totalling 16 Problem Sets for the year-long course. Students were encouraged to work in groups on these questions which integrated the previous two class period’s content and additional previous course content, as applicable. Questions in each Problem Set targeted concepts at the Apply, Analyze, or Evaluate learning levels of the Modified Bloom's Taxonomy. Each student turned in their own answer page for an individual grade, serving as a formative assessment. The Problem Set worksheets also included three reflective questions asking the student to note which classmates they worked with, how well they felt they understood the material, and what they did outside of class to prepare for the Problem Set session. The cohort of students in this study was 14 students/semester. In 16/16 Problem Sets, 100% of the students responded to an open-ended question indicating that they completed the Problems Sets with classmates and identified their specific collaborators. In 13/16 Problem Sets, students’ responses to the multiple choice reflective question, “After completing these questions with my classmates I feel…”, 85% of the students responded “...like I understand the material better,” and the remaining 15% responded “...about the same.” In the other 3/16 Problem Sets, only 64% of the students responded “...like I understand the material better.” This indicates that some Problem Sets were more effective than others in assisting students with perceived learning and understanding of the content. Notably, as the semester progressed, students increased their response details to the open-ended question, “How do you prepare for these Friday sessions?”. At the beginning of the semester many students left the question blank or wrote “nothing”, but beginning with Problem Set 4 students started to list specific things they did outside of class to prepare for these sessions, such as “reviewing course notes” or “redrawing pathways and figures” or “completing practice problems in the textbook.” By Problem Set 7 more than 80% of students were sharing details on how they increased their study time outside of class to prepare for Problem Sets. These responses highlight the students’ increased utilization of metacognitive strategies that lead to success (i.e. spending more time outside of class preparing for in class activities) and the benefit of these activities on their learning and understanding of the course material. Collectively, these qualitative data support the continued use of Problem Sets in this integrative year-long anatomy and physiology course. none. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.