Are you a physiology educator? Are you someone who is interested in physiology education or has been a physiology educator in the past? We want you to join the Physiology Education Community of Practice (PECOP)!
What is PECOP?
PECOP is a community for individuals at any academic level who are excited about physiology education. PECOP seeks to:
- Expand and support a community of practice of physiology educators committed to evidence-based scientific teaching and scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) and discipline based education research (DBER)
- Empower physiology faculty from diverse institutions to become leaders in physiology education reform efforts (evidence-based teaching practices, current issues in physiology education and physiology education research, available leadership roles)
- Catalyze collaboration among physiology professionals in education reform and research to enhance student learning.
How Do PECOP Members Interact?
Blog
This PECOP blog will discuss issues in physiology education including: physiology education transformation, developing and using core concepts and competencies, designing, testing, and using evidence-based innovations in student centered learning, aligning teaching and assessment, building educational research skills, facilitating educational research collaboration, publishing and funding educational research, and building teaching skills. Look for new blog posts every other Monday.
Forums
PECOP forums are open to all registered members of the LifeSciTRC (registration is free). In the forums you can post a question or discussion topic and join in ongoing discussions. Please subscribe to any thread of interest by using the subscribe tool at the top of the forum page.
Face-to-Face
PECOP members first met at the inaugural APS Institute on Teaching and Learning (read more about PECOP’s beginnings below). There are plans to offer additional face-to-face activities for the PECOP community including an APS Institute on Teaching and Learning every other year, the teaching section lunch and other activities at the Experimental Biology (EB) annual meetings and regional activities in physiology education sponsored by PECOP members.
How Do I Join?
Are you ready to be a part of the PECOP community? Go to “My LifeSciTRC”, click on “Edit My Profile”, and select “PECOP Member.” Then join the PECOP discussion in the forums and check back here for future blog posts.
PECOP’s History
The APS Teaching Section with the support of the APS Education and Meetings Departments offered its first Institute on Teaching and Learning June 23-27, 2014 at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, ME. A National Science Foundation Research Coordinating Network for Undergraduate Biology Education incubator grant of $50,000 to Marsha Matyas, Barb Goodman, and Jenny McFarland, enabled the ITL to recruit and host 15 new Physiology Education Community of Practice (PECOP) fellows primarily from two-year or minority-serving institutions as full participants in the ITL. The NSF grant also partially supported institute leadership including thought leaders and thought leader helpers who facilitated activities during the institute and will continue by seeding and encouraging communications among PECOP members over the next two years of the community.
Barb Goodman received her PhD in Physiology from the University of Minnesota and is currently a Professor in the Basic Biomedical Sciences Department of the Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota. Her research focuses on improving student learning through innovative and active pedagogy.