Ask any professor to describe a "first-row student," and you will likely hear a description of an engaged learner who pays attention during class, takes notes, and asks questions. A research study from the 1980s has indicated that undergraduate students sitting in the front and center of the classroom score higher than other students.…

Active learning is an instructional method in which students become engaged participants in the classroom through the use of in-class written exercises, games, problem sets, audience-response systems, debates, class discussions, etc. Despite evidence supporting the effectiveness of active learning strategies, minimal adoption of the technique has…

Lecture-Based Teaching (LBT) remains the predominant form of teaching in healthcare profession education. It is excellent in providing an overview of a particular topic to a large number of students. However, the concern, which has been highlighted time and again, is the monotony and passive nature of this form of information transmission, which…

This is a reflective essay based on the experience of developing a structure and function module within a new integrated medical curriculum. Our hope is that the insights we gained during a 4-yr journey in a new medical school will be transferable to others engaged with curriculum development. Here, we present an interpretive analysis of our…

The study of human bioscience is viewed as a crucial curriculum in allied health. Nevertheless, bioscience (and particularly physiology) is notoriously difficult for undergraduates, particularly academically disadvantaged students. So endemic are the high failure rates (particularly in nursing) that it has come to be known as "the human…

The accommodation of diverse student learning approaches and maintenance of good academic outcomes are often difficult to achieve in university courses, particularly where large classes are concerned. These issues become even more significant when dealing with first-year students in science courses with high levels of factual and conceptual…

In this project, the traditional lecture hall presentation of acid-base physiology in the first-year medical school curriculum was replaced by interactive, computer-assisted instruction designed primarily for the iPad and other mobile computer platforms. Three learning modules were developed, each with ~20 screens of information, on the subjects…

During underwater submersion, the body responds by conserving O[subscript 2] and prioritizing blood flow to the brain and heart. These physiological adjustments, which involve the nervous, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems, are known as the diving response and provide an ideal example of integrative physiology. The diving reflex can be…

The fact that humans possess fast and slow-twitch muscle in the ratio of approximately 50% has profound implications for designing exercise training strategies for power and endurance activities. With the growth of exercise and sport science courses, we have seen the need to develop an undergraduate student laboratory that demonstrates the basic…

In engaging lectures, also referred to as broken or interactive lectures, students are given short periods of lecture followed by "breaks" that can consist of 1-min papers, problem sets, brainstorming sessions, or open discussion. While many studies have shown positive effects when engaging lectures are used in undergraduate settings,…

Science graduates require critical thinking skills to deal with the complex problems they will face in their 21st century workplaces. Inquiry-based curricula can provide students with the opportunities to develop such critical thinking skills; however, evidence suggests that an inappropriate level of autonomy provided to under prepared students…

Many chemistry educators have adopted the process-oriented guided instructional learning (POGIL) pedagogy. However, it is not clear which aspects of POGIL are the most important in terms of actual learning. We compared 354 first-year undergraduate psychology students' learning in physiological psychology using four teaching methods: control,…

The Finapres finger cuff recording system provides continuous calculations of beat-to-beat variations in cardiac output (CO), total peripheral resistance, heart rate (HR), and blood pressure (BP). This system is unique in that it allows experimental subjects to immediately, continuously, and noninvasively visualize changes in CO at rest and during…

Medical students following a traditional curriculum get few opportunities to engage in activities such as a literature search, scientific writing, and active and collaborative learning. An analytical essay writing activity (AEWA) in physiology was introduced to first-year students. Each student prepared an essay incorporating new research findings…

Although active learning works, promoting it in large undergraduate science classes is difficult. Here, three students (F. Naji, L. Salci, and G. Hoit) join their teacher (P. K. Rangachari) in describing one such attempt. Two cohorts in a first-year undergraduate biology course explored the molecular underpinnings of human misbehavior. Students…