Web-Based Professional Skills Courses
2010 Live Short Courses
In January 2010, the American Physiological Society conducted live professional skills training courses for graduate and postdoctoral students. This was the third time both courses, “Writing and Reviewing for Scientific Journals” and “Making Scientific Presentations: Critical First Skills,” were run concurrently. 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. The instructors for this course were Kim Barrett, UCSD, Catherine Fuller, Univ. of AL-Birmingham, Robert Hester, Univ. of Mississippi, Evangeline Motley, Meharry Medical College, Thomas Schmidt, Univ. of Iowa, Heddwen Brooks, Univ. of Arizona, Carole Liedtke, Case Western Reserve Univ., David Pollock, Medical College of Georgia, and Mesia Steed, Wake Forest Univ.
For 2011, only the Writing and Reviewing for Journals course will be offered, with a maximum enrollment of 25 students (5 instructors). It will be held from January 6-9, 2011 at Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Lake Buena Vista. For the Writing and Reviewing course, students are encouraged to submit samples of their own manuscripts for discussion and revision.
Online Course Development
APS held a beta-test of its first Professional Skills Online Training Course on “Writing and Reviewing for Scientific Journals” from September 1 – October 15, 2009. This is the first online professional development course conducted by APS. The course evaluation results will be used to both improve the “Writing and Reviewing” course and plan additional online courses. The Education Office plans to run this course again.
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.
Towards developing a forum for graduate directors, representatives of the Society attended the 2009 National Directors of Graduate Studies in Pharmacology, hosted by the LSU Health Sciences Center and Tulane University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. The APS will partner with the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics to organize a joint meeting of Physiology and Pharmacology program directors in 2011.
Experimental Biology Activities
EB Refresher Course
The 2010 Refresher Course focused on cardiovascular physiology. The presentations are being prepared for the web and Advances publication.
Posters Presented by the Education Office
Members of the APS Education Office submitted an abstract for presentation as a poster at EB 2010. The poster was presented at the Teaching of Physiology Section session, “Helping Students Put the Pieces Together: Fostering Integrative Learning of Physiology.”
Support For Medical Science Educators
Meeting of the Medical Physiology Course Directors
At EB 2010, approximately 20 medical physiology course directors attended the meeting. Participants talked about both cardiovascular physiology content and how best to teach it.
APS Archive Of Teaching Resources
An updated version of the Archive of Teaching Resources was launched in January 2009 that includes highlights of current APS research and announcements, as well as an improved interface for browsing and searching. The submission process has been simplified and now includes the ability to “clone” a submission. This allows a contributor to 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.
The Archive added 800 new items in the past year and now includes more than 3,100 peer reviewed teaching resources items with an additional 400 items under review. More than 6,400 users have registered but many more use the site (registration is not required). In 2009, users viewed the information on more than 231,000 teaching resources and accessed more than 108,000 resources. That is, 50% of the time, users who read the descriptive information on a teaching resource go on to download it or click the link to it on the web.
Grant Proposals
In 2010, APS Education Office again submitted two proposals to NSF to support continued expansion of the APS Archive of Teaching Resources, both in terms of partners and features. A proposal, submitted as a subcontract with the AAAS, would allow a number of customization tools to be implemented, allowing users to embed Archive resource lists in faculty web pages, mySpace/Facebook pages, web course sites, and other e-interfaces to communicate with colleagues and students. It would also allow the staff to build strand maps to allow the user to find Archive resources by specific course topic. In addition, APS will promote the Archive, BEN and NSDL through multiple exhibits, workshops, and presentations.
David Bruce Awards
In 2010, 77 applications for the David Bruce Award were received and 24 finalists were selected. From the finalists, the subcommittee selected 10 David Bruce Awardees.
EB 2009 Undergraduate Poster Session
In 2010, approximately 250 APS members came to see the 100 undergraduate posters and to talk with the students. This year, 15 physiology departments paid a $250 fee for table space to promote their graduate programs to the undergraduate students at the session.
Promoting the Teaching of Physiology in Undergraduate Biology
Promoting APS Podcast Use
The Education Committee is developing a series of 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 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 2010, 28 teachers from 21 states (see map) are participating in a newly designed modification of the comprehensive Frontiers fellowship program. These teachers have already completed three lessons since May, and will continue to participate in the online course activities through May 2011. The teachers will convene for the first time at EB 2011 in Washington, DC. This one-year modification of the traditional APS summer research program serves two purposes: 1) It will provide evidence of the impact of the physiology laboratory experience for the teacher fellows; and 2) It will develop a new model to allow APS to reach out to more teachers via online professional development.
2010 EB Workshop for Teachers and Students
More than 125 Anaheim area high school teachers and their students attended the workshop along with APS members and 2009 Frontiers Research Teachers (RTs). As students arrived, they were engaged in interactive demonstrations by APS members, K-12 Outreach Fellows, and representatives from ADInstruments. The keynote talk, “Diabetes and the Heart: The Biggest Loser?” was given by APS member, Pamela Lucchesi, Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Her talk was followed by a Careers Panel. Fourteen APS members served as tour guides during lunch where they took teachers and students through the exhibits and posters and shared a box lunch while discussing physiology careers.
While students were conducting their experiments, their teachers participated in a workshop activity on modeling the digestive system with common household items. Feedback from both teachers and students was very positive and students were especially excited to meet physiologists one-on-one. The Committee is planning to continue the program in 2011 in Washington, DC.
International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) Awards
The 61st Annual International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) was held in San Jose, California May 9-14, 2010. More than 1,600 students from 60 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: one top award of $75,000 and two $50,000 scholarships from Intel. Grand Awards in each of the17 categories ranging from $500 to $5000 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, international travel, and scientific field trips.
NABT Professional Development Conference
The National Association of Biology Teachers is a professional organization of biology educators, primarily from K-12. The APS sponsors a keynote research update speaker each year for the NABT Professional Development Conference. For the November 2009 meeting in Denver, Colorado, Shane Kanatous of Colorado State University gave the presentation, “Lessons Learned from Marine Mammals.” Patricia Molina is the APS-sponsored speaker for the November 2010 meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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, and Women in Physiology. Beyond the Strategic Plan, however, the Society has never developed an explicit statement of its recommendations to K-12 educators or its goals in pursuing these efforts. Council approved the Education Committee’s intention to develop such a position statement, in cooperation with other relevant Society committees.
Physiology Understanding Week
2009 PhUn Week
The PhUn Week 2009 theme was exercise and health. Nearly 10,000 K-12 students in 42 locations engaged in physiology activities and learned about physiology careers.
USA Science and Engineering Festival (USASEF)
On October 23-24, 2010, the APS will participate in the Inaugural USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo on the National Mall in Washington, DC. The organizers’ intention is “to be the ultimate multi-cultural, multi-generational and multi-disciplinary celebration of science in the United States.” Hosted by Lockheed Martin, the Festival and two-day Expo will the first national science festival in which science and engineering organizations from across the nation will have the opportunity to engage the public in fun, hands-on science activities to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The APS Exhibit Booth/program title is “Understanding Physiology for PhUn.” Participants will engage in two physiology activities—one comparative physiology and one cardiovascular physiology, touching on both the biomedical aspects of physiology and the “one physiology” aspect of adaptations. Students will take an activity card with them. One side will describe how they can measure their temperature before, during, and after exercise to see how their body maintains its temperature. The other side of the activity card will describe how they can do a “straw race” at home, demonstrating changes in flow rate as diameter of the tube changes. Both sides of the postcard will direct them to an online site for a more detailed explanation by a physiologist (podcast) for both topics.
The booth will be staffed in two rotations per day of the Expo weekend, consisting of two past APS Minority K-12 Outreach Fellows, an Education Committee member, and a staff member of the APS Education Office. The Festival emphasizes the interaction of children with younger scientists, something that APS has promoted through PhUn Week and the K-12 Minority Outreach Fellows program. The Education Committee is enthusiastic about engaging the K-12 Minority Outreach Fellows as well as two Education Committee members in staffing the booth.