|
|
2002 Education Committee Report
The Education Committee supports a wide variety of projects and programs
to promote physiology education at all educational levels. Current efforts
are centered on recruiting materials to populate the APS Archive of Teaching
Resources. This web-based searchable Archive houses materials to support
instruction in the graduate, medical, undergraduate, and K-12 settings. This
project is part of the BiosciEd Net (BEN) collaborative, a national digital
library sponsored by the NSF. Interested faculty should visit the web site,
http://www.apsarchive.org to access
materials and to submit objects to the Archive. Also, members should be
aware that the APS Teaching Career Enhancement Award can be used to develop
and refine materials that may be submitted to the Archive.
The Medical Physiology Learning Objectives, a collaborative project by
the APS and the Association of Chairs of Departments of Physiology (ACDP),
was published and disseminated in late spring of 2002. Copies were sent to
all ACDP members, and the publication is available free at the APS website.
Departments may request up to 15 copies of the book for no charge;
additional copies are available for $3 per copy.
At the undergraduate level, Dee Silverthorn is coordinating “Integrative
Themes in Physiology” (ITIP), a NSF-funded program to enhance undergraduate
physiology teaching. The program is developing and field-testing modules
emphasizing common themes in physiology and determining how to effectively
communicate them within an undergraduate course. The first module,
“Gradients and Conductance,” has been field-tested and is being finalized
for publication both in print and on the APS web site. This is a
collaborative program between the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society
(HAPS), the APS Teaching of Physiology Section, the APS Education Committee,
the APS Education Office, and the APS journal Advances in Physiology
Education.
APS also sponsors workshops, an exhibit, and a keynote research update
speaker at the annual HAPS meeting. This year’s speaker was Barbara A.
Horwitz, APS President. In addition to her keynote talk, Horwitz convened a
discussion group on how APS can work with undergraduate faculty to encourage
student interest in physiology careers.
The APS has earned national recognition for the quality of the K-12
Science Education programs. This past year, programs included:
-
APS Summer Research Program for Teachers. The Summer
Research Program continues to work with teachers from across the nation,
engaging them in biomedical research and building connections at the local
level between teachers, students, and researchers. This program is now in
its 11th year, with continuation funding being received in Fall 2000 from
three NIH institutes: NCRR (three years), NIGMS (five years), and NIDDK
(five years). In these new grants, the APS will also be developing models
to help teachers learn how to integrate web technology in their
classrooms; therefore, many more innovative resources will be added to the
APS web site. Member support for this program continues to be strong, with
many members volunteering to host teachers in their laboratories and to
provide the needed lab materials and supplies for their research. In
February 2002, the Education Committee, along with several past Summer
Research Teachers, selected 14 teachers to participate in the summer 2002
program. Most of the teachers’ research hosts provided some in-kind
support for their stipend and/or travel. For a listing of those teachers
selected for the program, see the August 2002 issue of The Physiologist (http://www.the-aps.org/publications/journals/tphys/images/tphys8x02.pdf).
-
EB 2002 Workshop for Teachers and Students. This year’s
workshop was on physiological genomics, organized by Jeff Osborne, with
Susan Glueck, deputy editor of Physiological Genomics, as the keynote
speaker. More than 100 New Orleans high school teachers and students
attended.
-
Local Outreach Team Workshops. With the continued funding
mentioned above, additional funds are now available for APS members who
want to hold workshops for middle and high school teachers in their local
communities. The APS currently has 27 Local Outreach Teams (LOTs)
(researchers and teachers working together to hold workshops). In
addition, due to the enthusiastic work over the past two years, LOTs have
developed six new workshop units on topics such as cell structure and
function, physiology of exercise, renal physiology, gastrointestinal
physiology, structure and function of the eye, and levers in the human
body. These units are being field-tested and will be available in the
coming year on the APS web site.
-
Explorations in Biomedicine. The APS’ long-time
collaboration with the American Indian Research Opportunities consortium
(Montana State University and the Tribal Colleges of Montana) will
continue for five more years, thanks to a continuation grant from the
NIGMS. Explorations will continue to provide opportunities for Montana
teachers to participate in the Summer Research Program and for
undergraduate students to attend the Experimental Biology meetings. In
May, Rob Carroll, Joe Dan Coulter, and Subah Packer participated in a
retreat that brought together 25 Tribal College faculty and middle and
high school teachers from reservations across Montana to learn about both
best practices in teaching and the latest in physiology research,
especially on issues of particular interest to Native Americans and on the
use of Internet resources in teaching.
-
APS Awards at the International Science and Engineering
Fair. George Ordway coordinated the review and award to the best
physiology projects at the 2002 International Science and Engineering Fair
in May 2002. For more information on these awards and a listing of the
award winners and their projects, see the August 2002 issue of The
Physiologist (http://www.the-aps.org/publications/journals/tphys/images/tphys8x02.pdf).
-
Refresher Course at EB meeting. The “Neurophysiol-ogy
Refresher Course” at EB 2002 was organized by Cheryl Heesch and Tom
Cunningham, and included both molecular and integrative presentations. The
morning session was followed by an afternoon workshop on problem-based
learning. Both sessions received very positive ratings. For 2003, the
theme will be skeletal, smooth and cardiac muscle, and the afternoon
session will be a laboratory session on human exercise.
The success of the APS educational programs depends on the continuing
involvement of the APS members. The Committee offers a sincere thanks to
those physiologists who have contributed to the APS educational efforts over
the past year and invites anyone interested in the education committee
programs to contact Rob Carroll
(carrollr@mail.ecu.edu) or Marsha Matyas
(mmatyas@the-aps.org) for more
information.
Rob Carroll, Chair
Council Actions
|
|
