Planting the Seeds of Cross-Disciplinary Teaching & Assessment

1. Planting the Seeds of Cross-Disciplinary Teaching & Assessment Derek Scott School of Medical Sciences Mark Paterson, Curator, Cruickshank Botanic Garden

2. Background • The School of Medical Sciences has traditionally had little interaction with Cruickshank Botanic Garden until the current academic year. • Drug development -chemistry vsnatural products • Curriculum reform – breadth in curriculum, awareness of world events and issues. • Pharmacopoeia exhibition – perhaps not exploited enough? • Gardens underused by other disciplines apart of from expected ones such as those in SBS? • Understand origins of some of the more commonly-used drugs.

3. Plans • What can we do in a 6 week course with a class of just over 100 students from a variety of disciplines? • How does it fit in with the course in question: • BM3502 Neuroscience & Neuropharmacology • Did SMS and the Gardens have staff with the expertise to deliver such activities? • How do we make it engaging? • What logistical considerations/technical support would this require? • Cost • Location • Assessment • Feedback

4. Aims • To combine botanical expertise with pharmacological/physiological knowledge to develop a teaching and assessment activity for level 3 students that would: • Introduce students to cross-disciplinary collaboration and the role of ethnomedicine in drug discovery. • Provide further experience in problem-solving, practical work and scientific writing. • Allow student choice in assessment topic, whilst allowing timely feedback. • Curriculum reform and breadth – biodiversity, drug discovery, originality etc. • Use resources we already have but perhaps exploit more effectively?

5. What we did • Ethnobotany and ethnomedicine workshop • Introductory lecture to this field • Working with everyday products e.g. OTC medicines, cleaning products etc to identify useful botanical products with health or other benefits • Abstract on medicinal plant of their choice • Practical relating to natural product extraction to illustrate practical challenges of isolating natural products and turning them into a stable, usable drug. • Mention throughout relevant lectures throughout entire course of botanically derived drugs used as pharmacological or physiological tools.

6. Positive Outcomes • Abstract - Choice & originality (over 60 different topics researched) • Easy to mark, provide rapid and useful feedback • Students interested and engaged • Practical helped them understand difficulties of developing a new drug • Increased volunteers for Botanic Garden • Lots of students realised that even in medical sciences they need to be aware of issues such biodiversity • Unexpected non-academic outcomes…..

7. Negative Outcomes • Some students didn’t like the fact that it was hard to extract and quantify natural products – welcome to the wonderful world of scientific experiments! However, staff observed that students were always doing something in the lab and everyone got hands on experience in lab. • Too much choice? • Some students still felt they were medical scientists and “why did they have to know about plants?”. • Difficulties in time of year of course – hard to go into Gardens and see lots of material in bloom. • Different interests of groups of students from different degrees – how do we engage them all?

8. Plans for next time? • Reduce choice to smaller topics more related to neuropharmacology? • Keep reinforcing relevance of why they should be interested as medical scientists in other disciplines • Show example abstract specifically relating to this topic – novel activity for some students. • Look at ways of improving extraction method in practical so more students feel successful.

9. Conclusions • We feel this educational exercise has been a success for staff and students and has shown how cross-disciplinary collaboration can facilitate teaching a large, diverse class, while allowing students choice in their assignment and enabling timely feedback via assessment in a novel way. • Not perfect, but some good outcomes that we can build on. • Added breadth to curriculum • Engaging and allows use of imagination/ originality • Strengthened links between SMS and Botanic Garden • Encouraged others to look at resources we already have and ask whether we could use them more effectively?

10. Acknowledgements • Alison Davidson and Elaine Lyall (in the CLSM Teaching Facility for preparation of practical classes and input into how they would actually work in logistical terms! • Dr Alison Jenkinson for taking part in the assessment and practical work. • Mark Paterson for giving of his time and expertise so freely.