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CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, AND PEDAGOGY article

Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1446513
This article is part of the Research Topic Evidence-Based Outreach/Service-Learning to Improve Health-Related Self-Efficacy through STEMM Education View all 13 articles

Reaching the top of Bloom's Taxonomy: An innovative pilot program for preclinical undergraduate and medical school students to Create curricula for STEMM outreach/service-learning programs

Provisionally accepted
  • Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston University, Boston, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Bloom's Taxonomy is an andragogical tool that classifies educational objectives, learning activities, and assessments into distinct levels of cognitive thinking. Preclinical medical sciences educators aim to promote higher-order thinking in their curricula to help students develop clinical decision-making skills and foster deep learning. However, many courses and curricula remain focused on lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy because they are easier to implement and assess. Meanwhile, many servicelearning opportunities for medical students focus on developing affective faculties over higher-level cognitive processing of curricular material. We describe a model program in which undergraduate pre-medical education (UPE) and undergraduate medical education (UPE/UME) students at Boston University Charles River Campus (BU CRC) and Boston University Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine (BU Chobanian & Avedisian SOM) simultaneously engaged in service-learning and the Create level of Bloom's Taxonomy by developing a supplementary high school (HS) medical science curriculum based on content and instructional models from their preclinical courses. Activities such as mock patient cases, simulated patient interviews, and physical examination training contributed towards a HS curriculum that promotes healthy habits; increases community public health self-efficacy; sparks interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Medicine (STEMM) concepts; and educates about medical careers through engaging lessons and activities focused on human anatomy and physiology.

    Keywords: Bloom's taxonomy, Create level, outreach, service-learning, Self-directed learning

    Received: 10 Jun 2024; Accepted: 21 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Salas, Tan, Andrienko, Cengiz and Wisco. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jonathan J. Wisco, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston University, Boston, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.