Justine Turchiaro

About: Everyone deserves to feel seen, valued, and appreciated-regardless of their diagnosis and ability. I have made it my mission as a young learner at Seneca Polytechnic, to advocate for those who have difficulty advocating for themselves. I desire to instill in others the confidence and belief that they are worthy and capable of doing anything that they put their mind to. Throughout my studies in behavioural psychology, and studying how students with developmental disabilities behave, I am passionate about creating a community of acceptance, inclusion, and celebration

Projects

By students, for students: co-creating a cost-effective teaching laboratory for authentic and active learning

G. ARAGAO, E. CHEPEL, A. FOK, N. GAHOV, D. NASIR, S. NAZMI, E. SOARES, J. TURCHIARO, E. KANTINI, *M. C. TUCCI;
Seneca Polytechnic, King City, ON, Canada.

Providing undergraduate students with an authentic and active learning experience has the potential to stimulate curiosity and plant a seed for discovery in the next generation of neuroscientists. Seneca Polytechnic is a large, post-secondary institution located in Ontario, Canada. The first core neuroscience course within the Bachelor of Behavioural Psychology program will be offered in the very near future. Here, we describe the development of the laboratory component of this course. What is unique about our development process is that it scaffolds around three key components: student-faculty engagement in curriculum development, providing authentic and active learning opportunities, and finally, implementing the latter in a cost-effective manner. At the core of the laboratory development process was the collaboration between students and faculty. In doing so, an appropriate learning setting could be built that matches students learning processes, content interest, and provides for differing modes of assessment. At the heart of this was the goal of adapting classic teaching and learning activities in the neurosciences to contemporary approaches that provide cost-effective, authentic and active learning opportunities. Three unique hands-on approaches were developed to immerse students in practical neuroscience activities, in an attempt to foster deeper engagement and understanding beyond theoretical instruction. In the first activity, students engage in real-time brainwave evaluation using the Muse 2 Headband and Mind Monitor app to evaluate the influence of mindfullness meditation on alpha wave modulation. Mindfullness meditation was selected based on evidence showing its impact on alpha power (Lomas et al., 2015). In the second activity, students utilize Sniffy The Virtual Rat, where they can design an experiment to test behavioural principles related to operant and classical conditioning in real-time. For the third activity, a 3D brain atlas (Neurotorium, n.d.) offered via neurotorium.org is used to visualize brain structure, and discuss function based on a neurological case study. This approach will also help to reveal the rich functional connectivity amongst brain regions, and its relationship to behaviour. Altogether, these authentic and active strategies go beyond traditional classroom learning, empowering students to develop a deeper understanding of the neurosciences using cost-effective resources. Furthermore, the laboratory development process was optimized by students and faculty working together on curriculum development, sharing their unique perspectives on teaching and learning.