2009 Live Short Courses
In January 2009, the APS conducted live professional skills training courses for graduate and postdoctoral students. This was the second time both courses; ‘Writing and Reviewing for Scientific Journals’ and ‘Making Scientific Presentations: Critical First Skills,’ were run concurrently. NIGMS grant funding provided travel fellowships for all 77 students to participate in the courses. The writing and reviewing course focused on upper level graduate students and post-docs and the skills needed for writing and reviewing their first author manuscript for scientific journals in biomedicine. The presentation skills course was geared toward lower level graduate students and the skills needed to create and present their first author posters at meetings. Following the workshop, students in both courses completed a final “test” of multiple choice questions and a standard abstract critique to assess student skills in applying what they learned at the course. The results of these quantitative assessments are serving as a pilot test for the instruments. The 2010 course is set for January 14-17 at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The Presentation Skills course is open to any student in physiology. For the Writing and Reviewing course, we encourage students to submit samples of their own manuscripts for discussion and revision.
Online Course Development
The staff have developed a draft “Writing and Reviewing for Journals” course at the APS Blackboard website. Each course includes readings, professionally narrated PowerPoint presentations, written exercises, quizzes, and a pre and post-test. Courses will be instructor-moderated and students will be able to chat with the instructor via email or a “virtual classroom.” The second online course, “Basic Presentation Skills” is under development for fall testing.
Physiology Graduate Program Directors
In response to the success of the Medical Physiology Course Directors website and group, as well as recent input from the APS Pipeline Taskforce, the Education Office has begun soliciting contact information on physiology program directors. It is hoped that these data will facilitate the organization of a similar support group for graduate education.
Experimental Biology Activities
EB Refresher Course
The 2009 Refresher Course focused on renal physiology and was organized by Robert Brock and Robert Hester. The session presentations are being prepared for the web and Advances publication.
Posters Presented by the Education Office
For the first time, members of the APS Education Office and Committee submitted abstracts for presentation as posters at EB 2009. The following were presented at the session on Teaching, Learning and Testing in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences: Marsha Lakes Matyas, Melinda E. Lowy, Amy Feuerstein, and Thomas A. Pressley. APS Archive of Teaching Resources expands to create a multi-society, collaborative digital library. FASEB J. 2009 23:633.10; C. Brooke Bruthers, Martin Frank, and Marsha Lakes Matyas. K-12 Minority Outreach Fellowship: Bridging generations among minority scientists. FASEB J. 2009 23:633.11; Mel Limson and Marsha Lakes Matyas. Physiology Understanding Week: Developing a national outreach program. FASEB J. 2009 23:633.12; Melinda E. Lowy, Nansie A. McHugh, William R. Galey, and Marsha Lakes Matyas. APS Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship program: Exposing undergraduates to physiology research leads to a research-focused career. FASEB J. 2009, 23:633.9.
Meeting of the Medical Physiology Course Directors
At EB 2009, 25 medical physiology course directors attended the meeting. Participants talked about both renal physiology content and how best to teach it. Several asked for refresher course speakers to discuss how many hours in their courses were dedicated to the specific refresher course topic. The Education Committee is exploring the AAMC CurrMIT website to gather information on the number of hours spent on each physiology topic in the medical curriculum.
Sharing Resources at IAMSE
The Committee, with support from staff, exhibits at the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE). IAMSE’s mission is “to advance medical education through faculty development and to ensure that the teaching and learning of medicine continues to be firmly grounded in science.” The APS Education Committee has coordinated staffing an exhibit at the IAMSE meeting for several years. Budget includes an exhibit table and materials but no travel support for staff or APS members.
APS Archive of Teaching Resources
The Archive of Teaching Resources upgrade was completed in December 2008 and the new Archive launched in January 2009. The new Archive interface provides extensive tools for both browsing and searching, highlights APS research and announcements on the front page along with a “This Month in History” feature that highlights important dates in physiology and biomedical research. “My Archive” features allow users to save and share search results. The submission process has also been simplified and now includes the ability to “clone” a submission. This allows a contributor to easily add similar items without going through each submission step again. The new Archive also has the ability to create “collections”. For example, the Archive can associate a podcast with the associated journal article, press release, and discussion questions to be used in the classroom. The Archive layout is being used as a model by other scientific societies (AAAS, ASM) as they update their libraries. As of June 10, 2009, the Archive includes more than 2,300 items with an additional 300 items under review and has more than 5,800 registered users. In the first five months of 2009, users have viewed the information on more than 56,000 teaching resources and have accessed more than 27,000 resources. The Archive was promoted via poster/abstracts at the 2008 National Science Digital Library Annual Meeting and EB 2009, and by presentations at the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT) and Human Anatomy & Physiology Society (HAPS) 2008 and 2009 meetings and the 2009 Science Education Partnership Awards PI annual meeting.
Promoting APS Podcast Use
The Education Committee is conducting a pilot project to develop teaching resources to enhance and promote the use of the APS Life Lines podcasts in undergraduate courses and K-12 classrooms. A Subcommittee is developing question and answer sheets for each podcast and a group of past Summer Research APS Education Committee 2009 and teachers are reviewing them for grade appropriateness. Links will be provided to the podcast, Q&A sheets, related research articles/press releases, and related websites.
APS Summer Research Program for Teachers
In 2008, the program supported 11 teachers from 10 states, fully supported by the APS Council and contributions for stipends and/or travel from their Research Hosts while new proposals for external funding were under review. These teachers completed their fellowship year by participating in EB 2009. Six teachers presented research posters and two of those teachers gave oral presentations. In 2009, 18 teachers from 13 states are working in the laboratories of APS members. These teachers have completed three online professional development units and attended the APS Science Teaching Forum in July.
2008 EB Plenary Session and 2009 APS/NSTA/NSDL Webinar
The Education Office is working to utilize EB sessions to reach far more participants than those who can attend the meeting. For example, the 2008 EB Workshop for Teachers and Students plenary session, “Human Physiological Limits to Exploring Mars” by James Pawelczyk, Associate Professor of Kinesiology & Physiology, Penn State University and former NASA payload specialist astronaut, was recorded and edited and will be available at the APS website and through the APS Archive of Teaching Resources. In 2009, Dr. Pawelczyk was invited by APS, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) to speak at a collaborative webinar, “APS: Studying the Human Limits of Exploring Mars.” The webinar was attended live by more than 65 teachers, a very large “crowd” for an online teacher webinar.
International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Awards
The 60th Annual International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) was held in Reno, Nevada May 11-16, 2009. More than 1,600 students from 51 countries, regions, and territories competed in the world's largest pre-college science competition. During the two evenings of awards ceremonies, more than $4 million in scholarships, cash prizes, and awards were distributed in categories ranging from behavioral science to engineering and medicine. Prizes included scholarships, cash awards, scientific field trips to foreign countries, and the grand prizes: three $50,000 scholarships from Intel. Grand Awards in each of the17 categories ranging from $500 to $3000 were presented by the Intel Foundation. Special Awards were presented by more than 70 scientific, professional, and educational organizations and included scholarships, summer internships, book and equipment grants, and scientific field trips. This year’s APS judging team leader was Education Committee member Robert Hester, University of Mississippi Medical Center. He was accompanied by Education Committee member Mark Knuepfer, St. Louis University. Receiving $1,500 for first place was Zinan Zhang, 16, a junior at Chamblee Charter High School in Chamblee, GA for his project entitled “Adenosine 2b Receptor: A Novel Therapeutic Target for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” The APS Second Place winner ($1000) was Jasmine Samaiya Roberts, 15, of Paul Wharton High School, Tampa, FL for her project entitled, “Does Chronic Hyperglycemia have an Effect on Alzheimer’s Amyloid-Beta Pathology in the Brain?” The APS judging team selected the project of Melissa Severn McDowell, 16, from Saint Joseph’s Academy, Baton Rouge, Louisiana for one of two APS Third Place awards ($500) for her project entitled “Differentiation of Bovine Adipose Derived Adult Stem Cells.” The second third place APS award ($500) was presented to Stephanie Mian Wang, 17, of Roslyn High School in Roslyn Heights, New York. Stephanie’s work was titled “The Novel Property of the Circulating Hormone AM and Its Binding Protein: Neuroprotection in Hypoxia.”
Biology Olympiad
In the spring of 2009, the APS was invited to join the USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) 2010 National Finals, sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Education. The APS was requested to provide an instructor who could offer training in animal physiology and a laboratory experience to 20 high school students in preparation for the competition in June 2010. Training is likely to take place at either Purdue University (Indiana) or George Mason University (Virginia). The objectives of the USABO Finals are as follows: (1) select the team of four student finalists that will represent the USA in the International Biology Olympiad, (2) help the students to expand their understanding of biology and their ability to use that understanding in integrative and significant ways, and (3) help as best the instructors can in the limited time available to help the students develop their laboratory skills and their understanding of laboratory processes. The Committee will identify an APS member who can serve as an instructor at the Committee’s fall meeting.
APS Position Statement on K-12 Outreach
Explicit statements of the importance of specific scientific disciplines, teaching approaches, and advocacy in K-12 education have been released by several universities and professional societies. For many years, the APS has pursued multiple initiatives in K-12 outreach. As the various programs of the Society have become more ambitious, they frequently require the input from multiple APS Committees, including Education, Career Opportunities, Trainee Advisory, Porter Physiology Development, and Women in Physiology. Beyond the Strategic Plans, however, the Society has never developed an explicit statement of its recommendations to K-12 educators or its goals in pursuing these efforts. The Education Committee requested and received Council approval to develop such a position statement, in cooperation with other relevant Society committees.