Using a well developed outcome and assessment driven curriculum development module, we will create and implement two linked interdisciplinary courses for graduate students in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Boston University School of Medicine. The central curriculum development module (the SPIRIT engine) will be created using a framework assessment model. This tool will allow outcomes-based short programs to be developed by participating faculty and will provide an assessment driven unified approach to teaching interdisciplinary content and concepts as well as the principles of collaboration and collaborative administration. Two core modules will be developed and implemented in this program using the SPIRIT tool: 1) a core hands-on course in systems thinking and computational modeling and: 2) a case based vertical integrated interdisciplinary course in neurobiology. The first course, """"""""Dynamical Modeling and Systems"""""""", is an innovative course that will provide the seminal experience to introduce students to the tools of interdisciplinary research. The course will utilize interactive computer based simulations of complex biomedical systems that require a systematic approach that includes formal modeling and explicit description of dynamical change-in effect """"""""the roadmap"""""""" for interdisciplinary thinking. Students will then apply these newly acquired skills to the second course, """"""""Case Studies in Human Neurobiology"""""""", in which they will be required to overcome the traditional disciplinary boundaries (i.e, biochemisty, physiology, anatomy, histolgy developmental biology, cell biology, genetics, neuropsychology and social behavior). Taken together, these two courses will nurture the essential and requisite skill of the interdisciplinary scientist. We will then administer the same course to another cohort of graduate students at Boston University School of Medicine with a more cell biological and biochemical background to show that the dynamic modeling and systems approach works equally well to allow students from different traditional disciplinary backgrounds to engage and achieve mastery of a common interdisciplinary skillset. In the third year, through the auspices and guidance of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, we hope to make available and disseminate the courses, and the process of their development, to select neuroscience departments and programs throughout the country.
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