Human Anatomy and Physiology 2

Hbio 202

Teaching Effectiveness

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Narrative

I was hired, in part, to teach Anatomy and Physiology. These courses presented difficulty as I had never had a single anatomy course prior to my hiring. However, Dean Tom Nelson assured me that a good instructor could teach anything. For me, learning the material went hand in hand with learning how to teach it. I stumbled upon the Visible Body apps which opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me. I adopted their apps as a cheaper alternative to my textbook for the 2017 semester and saw improvement in the students performance. I quickly became involved with the development of lab activities, the testing of their courseware program (where we were the original beta test site), and the assessing the utility of their materials in my classroom. In 2018, I added health communications to the assignments to help the students relate the course material to their lives.

Prompt

Student Interaction

Results

To make anatomy more active, student groups are often asked to draw and label organs or flow charts of physiological phenomena on the whiteboard. When finished or stuck, students collaborate with surrounding groups to correct their drawings.

Sample lecture and associated materials

Circulatory lecture 3

Circulatory system-- general vessel information and blood pressure

Circulatory_system_unit_outline 2.0 (1).pdf

Guided notes

Students are given guided notes to aid them in following lectures and studying for each unit. This has been shown to be an effective technique for aiding in student retention.

Review videos

Digestive review video

This video was made as a quick overview to help students understand all of the components involved in digestion and how they fit together. Videos like these have been shown effective at aiding in student understanding and retention.

Review for glomerular filtration

Review for Loop of Henle

Sample Documents

Harley Hbio202 2018 syllabusv2 (1).pdf

Course syllabus

The course syllabus clearly lays out policies, procedures, and assignments

Harley Hbio202 2018 schedule.pdf

Course outline

The course outline includes learning outcomes for each unit enabling students to understand what is expected of them

Hbio202 Lab Schedule.pdf

Lab schedule

The lab schedule indicates which labs will be held when and the learning outcomes for those labs

Hbio 202 Exam 1 Fall 2018.pdf

Sample Exam

Medical(1).pdf

Sample student work 1

Testotoxicosis

Sample student work 2

The student health communications were instituted in Fall 2018. Above are examples of student work. In these communications students are asked to discuss the underlying anatomy and physiology of a disease related to a system covered on the exam. They can write a pamphlet or a letter to a loved one. These are then shared with the class as review.

IIQs

Below these course reviews, I detail what I have done to improve the course.

Hbio 202 f2016.pdf

Fall 2016

Hbio202 IIQ f2017.pdf

Fall 2017

Overall instructor rating

note-- axis reversed such that the best score (1) is at the top of the graph.

end fall 2018hbio202v2

End of semester survey form

Part of this form is an assessment which is given at the start of the semester. This allows me to see if students are retaining information learned in class.

Survey1fall 2018hbio202

Mid-semester survey

Hbio202endfall208.pdf

End of semester results from 2018

Course Evolution

This course has undergone several changes to address what I saw in student performance and evaluations. Many of these techniques are based on evidence based high-impact teaching practices.

1) We switched from the textbook to the much better (and cheaper) visible body apps.

2) Labs were re-worked to make the relationship between the labs and course material more explicit.

3) Learning objectives were added to each lecture and lab unit

4) I use online quizzing. Originally this was through McGraw Hill connect but the questions were not good and I saw no relationship between student performance on the quizzes and in the class. I switched to visible body quizzes many of which I wrote. This has been better, however, now some students see a lack of relationship between the online quizzes and my exams. This coming semester online quizzes will be practice (mostly digital dissection questions like 'find the cephalic vein') and some in class group questions which are the same format as exam questions will be done.

5) Students started doing health communications where they pick a disease (not discussed in class) which relates to the course material. They then discuss the anatomy and physiology of that disease in one of several formats (powerpoint, informational pamphlet, letter to a loved one).

6) In fall 2018 all of the lectures were recorded and posted online to enable students to revisit the material. I also did several mini-lectures for tough concepts. The students stated that this was incredibly helpful and use statistics showed that they did use the videos.

7) I am continuing to try to make students have a more active role in the class. I am not always successful at this but I make it a conscious effort.

8) I started using guided notes which many students have identified as being helpful.

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