655-321 Practical Problems in Vision

655-221, 655-222 and 655-028.

The subject is presented in a problem-oriented approach and is therefore designed to provide students with an opportunity to use their basic knowledge of the visual system to solve clinical or other relevant vision problems. It would develop students' skills in reading, analysing and debating scientific papers in the vision sciences.

Students will be divided into groups of 5 to 7 and each group will be provided with the scenario of a clinical case or of an experimental situation, and working in a group they will be solving it by discussing the problem among themselves, performing extensive literature search through library resources and if necessary, even performing some minor experiments. Each scenario is set by and coordinated by an assigned academic staff member. The academic will guide the students at the beginning and at tutorials during the semester. Towards the end of the semester, each group will present a 40-minute seminar, which will be followed by a discussion time. The topics for the scenarios will cover many of the commonly occurring disorders of vision, ranging from ocular conditions such as corneal dystrophies, glaucoma and refractive error to higher visual processing conditions such as dyslexia and may include rarer clinical conditions or visual or optical problems in the environment. Even though each group will be working in detail on one scenario, they will be learning about the other scenarios from the presentations given at the end of the semester.

A 40-minute scenario-based group seminar presentation during the semester (30%); a 3-hour written examination in the examination period (70%).

Comprehensive reading material in the form of reference lists and reference material will be provided.