Assembling a physical model helps students grasp human somatosensory pathways

Mastering the complexity of the nervous system is essential for education programs in physiology, anatomy, and neuroscience. Students often struggle when learning somatosensory pathways, which convey information from sensory neurons to the somatosensory cortex in the brain. Active learning activities incorporating physical models have been shown to increase content comprehension as well as enjoyment of the learning process. Here, we present a three-dimensional physical model of somatosensory pathways constructed of durable, affordable, and widely available materials. In an upper level human physiology lab, students assembled the model and then used it to complete case study questions connecting damage to the spinal cord to resulting sensory deficits. This model-based activity was highly effective as indicated by significant increases in content knowledge and positive responses to survey questions on the effectiveness of the activity. This activity incorporates many evidence-based teaching practices that have been shown to increase engagement, inclusion, and mastery of content and provides an effective and fun way for students to learn a challenging topic.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This model-building activity for learning somatosensory neural pathways increases students' content knowledge and is an enjoyable way to learn a complex system. This activity adds to an ever-growing collection of evidence-based learning activities for human physiology courses.