The objective of this study was to determine whether students within a large (100-160 students) didactic lecture-based course, "Elementary Physiology" (EP), who were given an active-learning opportunity would perform better on objective examinations over EP material compared with their classroom peers who did not have the same active-learning experience. This was achieved by offering the EP stu...

The brain function and cognitive ability of a team rugby players declined over the course single season, UK study has found. A professional Rugby Union were less able to remember, carry out mental tasks, formulate ideas as season went on, adding growing evidence that head collisions in some sports could be making more susceptible neurodegenerative diseases later life.1 The study, published Jo...

Learning styles may be classified according to the sensory modality that one most prefers to use when internalizing information. The four major sensory modalities are visual, aural or auditory, read/write, and kinesthetic. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between preferred learning style, gender, and course scores in an undergraduate physiology class. Students from ...

It is increasingly being recognized that the teaching of physiology (actually all of the biomedical disciplines) in graduate and professional programs is being done by individuals with no formal training as teachers (6). While this is certainly not the only, or perhaps even not the major, cause of the current crisis in medical education, improvements in teaching physiology must ultimately come ...

We redesigned our intermediate-level organismal physiology laboratory course to center on student-designed experiments in plant and human physiology. Our primary goals were to improve the ability of students to design experiments and analyze data. We assessed these abilities at the beginning and end of the semester by giving students an evaluation tool consisting of an experimental scenario, da...

Zimmermann M. Case studies in a physiology course on the autonomic nervous system: design, implementation, and evaluation. Adv Physiol Educ 34: 59–64, 2010; doi:10.1152/advan.00004.2010.—The introduction of case studies on the autonomic nervous system in a fourth-semester physiology course unit for Pharmacy students is described in this article. This article considers how these case studies wer...

A mastery of human anatomy and physiology requires a familiarity with a vast number of details about the human body. A directed method of case analysis is described that helps students deepen and solidify their understanding of anatomical and physiological facts, concepts, and principles. The successful case had four distinctive features as follows: clear learning objectives, a concise and info...

Anatomy and physiology teaching has undergone significant changes to keep up with advances in technology and to cater for a wide array of student specific learning approaches. This paper examines perceptions towards a variety of teaching instruments, techniques, and innovations used in the delivery and teaching of anatomy and physiology for health science students, and asks whether active learn...