Student feedback is very important to the continuous development of this course and has driven many of the positive changes we have been able to make in our course offerings.
Students in previous years have regularly commented that it was sometimes hard to learn cross-sectional anatomy within the time given for the lab sessions. Unfortunately, this is a skill that requires practice and revision and this course is set up to provide plenty of time for self-directed learning of the content prior to the final exam. Students are expected to come prepared to class, having watched the suggested pre-lab videos or H5P tutorials, having revised the pre-requisite worksheets from MEDIMAGE 201 and 203 and, optionally, having attempted the worksheet for the lab at hand. Lab sessions are made more meaningful when this is the case as the student comes prepared with a base knowledge upon which we can build understanding and nuance. Staff are available to answer questions throughout the duration of the course via Piazza and a range of resources are suggested to students to help them practice interpreting cross-sectional imagery in their own time after the formal teaching sessions. Examinations require the application of knowledge and theory to novel situations. To address the difficulty of learning within the time constraints of formal sessions, additional weekly revision sessions are held online where students can raise specific questions or have their personal image annotations checked and evaluated. For 2025, the addition of official annotated image sets will be released to the class once after the submission of the oral presentation assignment. The decision to delay release of this new resource has been made to emphasise that students should be attempting to undertake this activity themselves first, seeking feedback if necessary, as this will more significantly benefit their learning and understanding of the content.
In HAL teaching sessions, students are expected to work in small groups using iPads to explore prescribed image sets. Due to increasing cohort size, in 2024 the number of iPads available was identified by students as insufficient to their ability to work effectively in class. We recognise that maintaining optimal group size per iPad is an important factor to the efficacy of learning in these labs and have consequently purchased additional devices for 2025 to improve the in-class experience.
Additionally, Pathology tutorials held in the MSLC were identified as being sub-optimal due to the lack of desks on which to place devices for note taking. The MSLC was originally chosen for these tutorials as it houses the university's pathology collection and is an inspiring space to learn in but we recognise that it is no as fit for purpose. Although some sessions will still take place in the MSLC due to timetabling restrictions in 2025, most have now been relocated to more appropriate classroom spaces.
In previous years, some students felt that the course started very quickly, with students expected to be able to read and interpret cross-sectional imaging in the very first lab session for which they had not actually received any formal training. To combat this, we created an interactive H5P tutorial to introduce the fundamental concepts of cross-sectional imaging modalities as well as some more technical specifics relating to the two main modalities that students will encounter within the course (CT and MRI). This was released two weeks ahead of the first HAL lab for students to complete in 2024. Consequently, students were much more confident and capable in 2024 engaging with class activities compared to previous years. The resource remained active for the duration of the course for students to refer to and revise from as necessary to maintain fundamental concepts from which the course content builds.