Proposed changes to The Animal Body 1
On the 7th April 2011 the course review meeting for Animal Body 1 decided to
change the order of the three subsections from cell biology – embryology – small
animal anatomy to cell biology – small animal anatomy – embryology. However as
the timetable for 2011-12 had already been fixed it has not been possible to
implement the changes for the next academic year.
The purpose of this document is to ask the Learning and Teaching Committee to
approve the implementation of the changes in order of teaching (cell biology – small
animal anatomy – embryology) for 2012-13. The reasons for the proposed change
are as follows:
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Since the start of the implementation of the new curriculum, three years ago,
there have been complaints in all the end of course questionnaire’s and staff
student liaison meetings about the embryology course. This is despite a
change of teaching staff in 2010-11. Students perform poorly in the
assessment of embryology. For example, the mean mark on the compulsory
question in the recent examination (March 2011) was 2.8. The mean of
embryology questions in the spot examinations have never achieved a pass
mark.
The course review teaching team recognised that the major problem was
that the students did not have any knowledge of the anatomical terminology
or the three dimensional anatomical relationships of the adult animal. This
made the organogenesis component of the embryology particularly difficult
for the students to comprehend. Although some of the students did revisit
the embryology after doing the anatomy, the majority did not. Note, before
the curriculum change organogenesis for each system was positioned within
the system it was taught in and after students had been taught small animal
anatomy.
The course review teaching team decided that taking the students from
single cell to the whole animal in the embryology at the end of the Animal
Body 1 course would pull the cell biology and anatomy together in a
comprehensive and meaningful way.
It has been suggested that the anatomy part of the course be taught first
followed by the cell biology and then the embryology. This idea was rejected
for several reasons. First, the whole ethos of the course is to build from
molecules to the cell and then to the whole animal. Embryology at the end of
the course would reinforce this concept. Secondly, the majority of the
students will have done some cell biology at school or on a previous course.
The cell biology section of the Animal Body 1 course builds on this knowledge
at a time when the students are settling in to University. Consequently the
new and demanding anatomy course comes later in the semester, when the
students are more established.
The whole of the new curriculum for the first two years builds on this successful
sequence. The position of the embryology in Animal Body 1 has been the subject of
debate for many years. Its present position has not been successful. The course
review meeting decided the alternative position in the sequence was now pertinent
and should be given a chance. We seek the teaching committee’s approval for this
change.
Dr Sue Kempson
Course Organiser
The Animal Body 1