How We Teach Showercap Mindmap: a spatial activity for learning physiology terminology and location

Vanags T, Budimlic M, Herbert E, Montgomery MM, Vickers T. Showercap Mindmap: a spatial activity for learning physiology terminology and location. Adv Physiol Educ 36: 125–130, 2012; doi:10.1152/advan.00095.2011.—Students struggle with the volume and complexity of physiology terminology. We compared first-year undergraduate psychology students’ learning of physiological terms using two teaching methods: one verbal (control group; n 16) and one spatial and multisensory (experimental group; n 19). The experimental group used clear plastic shower caps to mark brain regions and affix labels to another participant’s head. The control group learned the material verbally through a game. When tested verbally, both the control and experimental groups recalled more of the 10 terms immediately after the activity ( 106% and 83%, respectively) and 2 wk later ( 53% and 31%, respectively) than at the pretest (P 0.0005). When participants’ knowledge was tested spatially (labeling a brain diagram), the experimental group recalled more terms at the posttest ( 76%) and followup ( 73%) than at the pretest (P 0.0005), but the control group who showed no improvement at either time point ( 12% and 14%, respectively). These findings support the notion that spatial and multisensory learning produces improved spatial recall over time while also supporting the notion of transfer-appropriate processing.