PHC5115 Neuroscience of Learning for Healthcare Educators
The Complete Study & Assessment Guide · Sem 1 AY26/27PHC5115 Overview
- National University of Singapore
- Semester 1, AY2026/27
- Postgraduate
- 2 modular credits
- Six weekly sessions
What this course argues
PHC5115 is built on a single claim, stated in the course materials without qualification: what teachers believe about learning is frequently mistaken, and habit ought to give way to evidence.
- Assessed entirely by coursework Four components at 25% each, and the course materials publish no examination.
- Judge by the delayed measure Immediate ease reports current performance; only unsupported recall after a gap reports learning.
- Annotation carries the plan The heaviest single criterion in the course rewards naming the mechanism behind each design choice.
- One decision drives three components The ten-minute segment earmarked in the course plan is taught in the demonstration and reflected on in the portfolio.
How PHC5115 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| A1 Low-Stakes Retrieval Exercises | 25% | Individual. Author one scenario-based question each week across Weeks 2 to 6, five in total covering five course topics, on PeerWise; work through peers' questions to the stated floor of five answered and rated over the module, with two commented on in each of the weeks. Assessed in Week 6, with a stated due date of 28 September. |
| A2 Course Plan | 25% | Group of three, on any teaching topic. A training module with an interleaved, spaced, retrieval-based structure in which every design choice is annotated with its mechanism, plus a 250-word critique of a machine-generated lesson plan. Draft due Week 5, peer review Week 6, final due 12 October. |
| A3 Demo Lecture | 25% | Group of three. Ten minutes at the front plus five minutes of questions, delivered in class in Week 8 on Monday 5 October, with one live moment in which the audience produces. Slides uploaded before class; a reflection of about 150 words due within 48 hours, with a stated due date of 7 October. |
| A4 Reflective Portfolio | 25% | Individual. About 500 words reflecting across the first three components, plus the Week 1 goals worksheet and a cumulative audit appendix with a narrative of about 200 words, both excluded from the word count. Due 12 October. |
The four published weights total 100%. The course materials reviewed here state no hurdle, minimum-mark or pass condition for any component, and no grade descriptor table, so none is claimed here in either direction; confirm the current position on Canvas. A separate formative item, the Week 1 personal learning goals worksheet and diagnostic pre-quiz, is logged but carries no marks. One conflict is worth knowing about: a timetable document circulated for this offering lists 15%, 25%, 25% and 35% for the four components and names the fourth as a final individual course design rather than a reflective portfolio. Three Canvas surfaces agree on the even split, so this guide follows them; check the assignment pages in the live course if your own copy differs.
Current PHC5115 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| 28 September 2026 | A1 stated due date | The due date shown on the A1 assignment page; the portfolio of weekly questions is assessed in Week 6. |
| 5 October 2026 | Demonstration lectures | Week 8, in class, 6 to 9pm. Seven groups at fifteen minutes each with a break between the fourth and fifth. |
| 7 October 2026 | A3 stated due date | The post-demonstration reflection, due within 48 hours of the demonstration. |
| 12 October 2026 | A2 final and A4 due | The stated due date on both the course plan final submission and the reflective portfolio. |
Dates are as published in the course materials published for this offering. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What PHC5115 covers
Nine source-led chapters move from why teaching intuition fails, through the memory systems and load limits that decide what can be learned, to the schedule and the calibration that prove it worked.
Evidence Against Intuition in Teaching
Separate durable learning from current performance and audit the evidence behind a teaching habit02Memory Systems and the Learning Brain
Classify what is being taught before choosing the intervention that acts on it03Retrieval Practice and the Testing Effect
Build recall that strengthens rather than measures, and tell retrieval from recognition04Attention and Cognitive Load in Clinical Teaching
Protect selection and working memory, then cut only the load that is avoidable05Consolidation and the Timing of Learning
Place the first return early in the decay and spend it on recall rather than re-presentation06Motivation, Emotion and Growth Mindset
Use emotional salience without spending the capacity the detail needs07Spacing, Interleaving and Desirable Difficulties
Reorder a blocked module without adding hours, and state the cost out loud08Metacognition and Calibration for Educators
Record confidence before the result, then change what counts as prepared09Designing the Assessed Teaching Artefacts
Write items, annotations and reflections against the published criterion weightsSix Monday sessions move from why familiar study strategies fail, through the cognitive and neural mechanisms of durable learning, to the metacognitive skill of checking confidence against competence.
Nothing in the assessment rewards recognising a term; every graded piece asks for a teaching decision with a named mechanism behind it.
How the six sessions build
The first session names the problem, which is that rereading and highlighting feel thorough and do not build lasting memory.
The second supplies the fix and the machinery behind it, moving from the structures that make memory possible to the testing effect itself. The third asks what has to be true before anything can be encoded at all, which is where attention and cognitive load enter, and what happens to a trace afterwards, which is consolidation. The fourth adds the affective layer.
The fifth turns the mechanism into a schedule through spacing, interleaving and desirable difficulties. The sixth closes the loop by asking how anyone can tell whether it worked.
The distinction everything rests on
Performance is how well a learner does right now; learning is the part that is still there once time has passed.
The two separate immediately after a session and a learner has direct access only to the first. Almost every trap in this course is a moment where immediate ease is read as evidence of lasting knowledge, and almost every technique is a way of taking the other measurement instead.
What is assessed, and what is not
There is no examination.
Four coursework components carry the whole grade at twenty five per cent each: a set of scenario questions authored and answered on PeerWise across the weekly cycle, a course plan designed by a team of three with every decision annotated, a ten-minute demonstration lecture taught live in the eighth week, and an individual reflective portfolio.
A fifth item, a personal learning goals worksheet with a confidence-rated diagnostic quiz, is formative and carries no marks, and it is the only place where a student's starting calibration is recorded.
How machine assistance is treated
Artificial intelligence use is expected and assessed rather than merely permitted.
Three of the four graded components carry an explicit element in which generated material is evaluated against the course frameworks and a use, modify or discard decision is made and defended.
The framing the course gives is worth carrying: a generative tool works the way a student works who revises by reading over the notes again, the output has the surface of thoroughness, and telling that apart from the real thing is the task.
Where the published sources disagree
Two documents circulated for this offering state different weightings.
The Canvas assessment pages, the course assessment guide and the second session all give four components at twenty five per cent each; a timetable document gives fifteen, twenty five, twenty five and thirty five. Both total one hundred. This guide follows the assignment pages, because three separate surfaces agree there and because the timetable is internally inconsistent about the fourth component.
The two documents also name that fourth component differently, as a reflective portfolio on one surface and a final individual course design on the other. Confirm which applies in the first week rather than in October.
Converting a recognition question into a retrieval question
- 2State why the item can be answered without any recall.
- 1Identify the second cue the wording supplies.
- 3Name the three changes that force the answer to be produced.
Key terms
- Testing Effect
- The result that pulling material back out of memory leaves more behind over the long run than spending the identical time going over it again.
- Storage Strength
- How deeply a memory sits. It moves upward only, and a costlier recall that comes off adds more of it.
- Retrieval Strength
- How reachable a memory is at this moment. It climbs after recent contact and slides away without it.
- Desirable Difficulty
- A condition that lowers immediate performance while improving retention, provided the retrieval succeeds and is corrected.
- Extraneous Load
- Avoidable demand created by presentation choices such as split attention, redundancy or irrelevant detail.
- Intrinsic Load
- The demand created by the interacting elements a task genuinely contains, managed by sequencing rather than removal.
- Systems Consolidation
- The slow migration of a memory out into spread-out cortical networks over weeks, largely while the learner sleeps.
- Interleaving
- Switching between related topics while studying so the learner must choose the approach before applying it.
- Calibration
- The match between how well a learner believes they know something and how well they actually perform.
- Metacognition
- Examining your own thinking and learning, which counts only when the next attempt is done differently rather than merely described.
PHC5115 FAQ
How is this course assessed and is there an examination?
Four coursework components carry the whole grade at twenty five per cent each: scenario questions authored and answered on PeerWise across the weekly cycle, a course plan designed by a team of three, a ten-minute demonstration lecture taught live in the eighth week, and an individual reflective portfolio. The course materials publish no examination.
A fifth item, a goals worksheet with a confidence-rated diagnostic quiz, is formative and carries no marks.
What is the testing effect and why does it change how sessions are designed?
It is the finding that pulling material back out of memory produces stronger long-term retention than spending the same time studying it again. What pays is the work of building the answer, so a short unsupported recall opening a session does some teaching rather than only reporting. It also explains why the weaker method feels better at the moment of choosing.
How do you tell avoidable difficulty from difficulty worth keeping?
Ask where the effort goes. Effort spent generating an answer or deciding which approach applies builds the memory and should be protected. Effort spent reconciling a crowded slide or an unclear instruction is consumed before it reaches the content, and removing it costs nothing. The first is the germane kind and the second is extraneous.
Why does mixing topics lower weekly scores and raise later ones?
A blocked schedule announces which approach applies, so the learner practises execution but never selection. Mixing removes that announcement, which makes each attempt harder and lower scoring at the time, and exercises the choice that any realistic later task demands. The ranking of the two schedules therefore depends entirely on when the measurement is taken.
What makes a practice question meet the standard set for it?
A realistic teaching or learning situation rather than a definition prompt, options that a competent educator would genuinely consider, an explanation that names the principle and rejects each wrong option, and wording that is your own rather than lifted from teaching material. The quickest check is to cover the options and answer the stem yourself.
How should a team choose the segment it teaches live?
By how quickly learners can be asked to produce something. Two criteria worth thirty per cent each depend on an active-learning moment being run and working, so a topic requiring eight minutes of exposition first spends the marked time on transmission. Choose a segment where a commitment can be asked for within the first few minutes.
What separates a strong reflective portfolio from a competent summary?
Specificity and evidence. The strongest version draws a named insight from each earlier component, connects it accurately to how people learn, revisits the goals set in the first week with an honest appraisal of what changed, and names two or three concrete teaching changes each tied to a correctly identified mechanism. A complete description of what was done is not the same thing.
How to prepare for the assessments
Choose a teaching topic in the first fortnight and run the whole course on it. Write each weekly question about it, build the course plan around it, teach a slice of it live, and reflect on what changed. Every principle then arrives attached to a decision you have already made, which is the condition under which any of this transfers.
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