Category Archives: Outreach

Spring 2020*: The asterisk denotes community made all the difference.

Spring 2020 is often denoted with an asterisk.  The asterisk means different things to different people.  For many people it means, “Things will never be the same.”  COVID-19 has changed the venues from which we teach, but not our commitment to continually improve our teaching.  We have adapted our lectures, labs, and office hours to online platforms to keep students and ourselves safe.  I am no seer, but once classes moved online in mid-March I knew this would be a long haul from which I must learn and never forget.  After submitting final grades, I asked myself, “What have you learned?  Which practices will you continue to implement to create a better learning environment for students irrespective of world health status or platform?”  My asterisk on Spring 2020 is community.

For Spring 2020 I was assigned three sections of an upper level exercise nutrition course and one section of basic exercise physiology.  Each was a critical course.  Kinesiology majors must pass exercise physiology before any other upper level kinesiology course; this was a new course for me.  The exercise nutrition course, which I taught the prior semester, includes an in-class presentation with a hefty point value; it also is the departmental assessment tool for communication skills.  Over the last several years the level of stress and anxiety among undergraduate students in my physiology courses has been progressively increasing, nearly choking their joy of learning.  Colleagues in other fields observe similar trends.  The majority of students taking physiology courses seek careers in health professions.  Given the competitive nature of the respective training programs, students are driven to earn that A.  Add to that the worry of paying for tuition, rent, food, books, computers, and transportation and complicated academic and social transitions from high school to college.  Their family expectations loom over them.  Some students are full-time students, but also full-time parents.  For first-generation college students these circumstances may bear even greater weight.  Thus, while preparing for Spring 2020 I decided to approach that semester with greater compassion for students.  This led to my forming a community of learners in each class a priority.  Ultimately, this helped me better meet the needs of my students during that first phase of the pandemic.

Webster defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.”  In preparing for Spring 2020, I identified aspects of each course that presented major challenges for students and represented sources of stress, anxiety, frustration, and discouragement.  I hoped to address those challenges and thereby, alleviate a source of stress.  Most exercise physiology students had not taken biology or basic physiology; thus, I had to teach them basic cell biology and basic physiology so they could better understand the significance of acute responses to exercise.  Based on my past experience teaching the exercise nutrition course, students needed more confidence speaking in public.  Furthermore, any given student might have known just two or three other students by name and were hesitant to speak in general.  I had to help them feel more at ease so they could talk and think out loud among their peer group.  We each want to belong to a community.  We value our individuality, but we are social beings.  Students must feel accepted and comfortable in class, so they can ask and answer questions within a small group or entire class.  A critical component of learning is not answering a question, but verbally defending that answer and exchanging ideas with others.  Many are afraid to answer incorrectly in front of others.  The classroom must be a safe place.  As the teacher, I am responsible for creating a sense of community.  While I did a great job getting to know my students’ names, faces and fun facts, I wasn’t helping students know each other.  For both courses I decided to include more activities that required students to talk directly to each other and become accustomed to speaking out loud.  With 20-25 students per class, it was feasible.  I would sacrifice class time and not be able to cover as much material.  So be it.  Students would master the fundamentals, learn to apply the knowledge, and have a shot at enjoying learning and becoming life-long learners.  Coming to class and learning might even become a reprieve from other stressors. 

How could I create community among unacquainted 20+ students?  Provide opportunity to interact as a class or in pairs or groups as often as possible.  I had to be persistent, kind, and patient.  The first day of classes I explained my intention was that students become familiar with each other, so that they were comfortable asking and answering questions and contributing to discussions.  This would facilitate learning and help me better gauge their understanding.  This also might help them find a study partner or even make a new friend.  I told them I made it a point to learn everyone’s name as soon as possible and would call on each student numerous times.  I made it clear that I know when people are shy; I promised to be kind and not call on them until they were ready.  Each day I arrived as early as possible and cheerfully greeted each student by their preferred name and asked open ended questions, e.g., ‘How are your other classes going?”  At least once a week, students worked in pairs to complete worksheets or quizzes; we would reconvene as a class and I would call on different pairs to answer.  I called on different pairs each time, so every group had chance to speak.  I encouraged them to work with different classmates for different in-class activities.  Initially, there was resistance, but I consistently commended them for their efforts.  Gradually, more students would proactively raise their hands to be called on, and it could get pretty loud.   

On the first day of the nutrition classes I also announced the presentation assignment and that we’d get started on it the 1st week of classes by forming pairs and by becoming accustomed to talking in front of the class.  To let them know that dread of public speaking is shared by all, I confessed to feeling nervous before every lecture; however, I love teaching and channel that nervous energy to keep the lectures upbeat.  I explained they might never get over the nervousness of public speaking, but they can learn nothing is wrong, being nervous is expected; it will become easier.  The trick is to start small.  So, at the start of every class period, one or two students would be asked to stand up, introduce themselves, and tell the class what they found most interesting from the last lecture.  The other students would give the presenter their undivided attention.  For shy students, I spoke directly but quietly to them before class and suggested that they could focus on me while they spoke.  After each introduction I cheerfully thanked students as positive re-enforcement.  These introductions also served to highlight what was covered in the last class.  Because each nutrition course class met 3 times a week for 50-minute sessions, students interacted frequently.  For the exercise physiology course, students worked in pairs to complete a ‘1-2-3 plus 1’ worksheet with questions on three key concepts from the previous lecture and one question on new material in the upcoming lecture.  They worked on questions for 5 minutes, and then I would call on different pairs to answer questions and explain sticking points for about 10 minutes.  It also was the transition into that day’s new material.  This class met twice per week for 80 minutes each session; thus, plenty of time remained even after the 15-minute Q&A.  They were grasping the integration of cellular mechanisms at the cellular and systems levels.  The time and effort to plan and execute these activities was well worth it.  Students were learning and enjoying class, as well as getting to know each other.  By late February communities had formed.  Each class had a friendly and inclusive feeling, and attendance was nearly perfect.  Even shy students began echoing my greetings or waving and smiling at classmates arriving to class.  Individual classes had their own running jokes.   

The week before Spring Break universities were discussing whether or not students would return to campuses after the break.  COVID-19 was here.  The Thursday and Friday before Spring Break were the last days I met with students in person.  I confirmed the rumors.  Students would not return to campus after the break, and all courses would be entirely online.  I clarified that I would present lectures ‘live’ at the regularly scheduled class times.  I opened the floor to discussion.  If I knew their concerns, I’d have a better chance at maintaining the sense of community.  Students were completely honest.  Seniors were sad, because graduation would be cancelled.  Students were hoping they could keep their jobs here in town to pay rent.  Athletes on scholarships worried that if the season were canceled they’d lose funding.  Others would be learning from their parents’ homes, which had no Internet access.  The most common concern was whether they would be as successful learning online.  They were worried about the lack of accountability.  One student feared he’d stop attending lectures and miss assignments; one reason he came to class was that I called him by name and talked to him every day.  Another student doubted I’d have any personality when giving online lectures; I took this as a challenge.  Students in the nutrition classes were worried about presentations, which were taking shape and now had to be presented somehow.  They were scared.  Now, I was scared for them – but had the wherewithal to not say that out loud.  One student outright asked, ‘Is this even gonna’ work?!”  I admitted it would be a challenge, in part because I had never taught an online class, and this was my first pandemic!  They laughed nervously.  What a relief to hear them laugh!  Then, I remembered my goal to practice compassion and let that guide me.  I calmly stated the following, “This is not an ideal situation, but we will make it work, and I mean WE.  I will do my best to not make this situation any more difficult than it has to be.  I will communicate with you regularly, so read my emails.  If you have any problems or questions you must let me know immediately, so to give me a better chance to help you.  It will be ok.”  That this was the last time I would see my students in person.  It was a sad day.

I took my students’ concerns into account and still made my priority community.  If I could maintain that sense of community, they would be more likely to login to lecture and learn. I kept it as simple, direct, and familiar as possible.  I already had been posting all lecture notes and materials on the university’s learning management system (LMS) and using the drop box for homework submissions.  Thus, I opted to use the real-time video conferencing tool in the LMS to deliver, record and save lectures and hold office hours.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  I established the practice of sending each individual class a weekly email on Sunday afternoon that listed the week’s lecture topics, specific links to each lecture and office hours, due dates for quizzes, upcoming exams, announcements, and miscellaneous reminders.  The very first email included step by step instruction for logging into the LMS video conferencing tool (which had been proofread and tested by a colleague), and I attached the revised syllabus.  I kept these emails as upbeat as possible.  On the class website, I also posted important announcements, along with links to the live and recorded lectures.  I kept the class website uncluttered and organized to make it easy for students to find what they needed.  In the middle of a pandemic, it was absolutely essential to keep my promise to my students and myself and not to make learning or teaching online any more difficult than necessary. 

I continued teaching the fundamentals and worked to maintain that sense of community.  I opened and logged into the virtual lecture room 10-15 minutes before lecture started and would allow students to do the same.  I would still greet them as they entered, asked them to turn on the video at least once, so I could see their faces and make sure they were doing ok.  They would also greet each other.  I encouraged them to ask questions or comment directly using their mics or in the chat message feature.  As I lectured, I kept track of questions and answers to my questions; I would address students by name just as I had in person.  They learned quickly that they could use the chat feature to communicate with each other, sometimes not about physiology or nutrition.  I didn’t mind.  I also knew they missed being on campus and seeing classmates and friends, and they were isolated.  For the exercise physiology course, we continued the practice of starting each lecture period with the 1-2-3 plus 1 worksheet and still spend about 15 minutes on that activity; the students really valued this activity.  Because the practice proved to facilitate learning, I posted these questions on the class website, but also emailed the class a copy the day before to be sure they had a copy – a 5-minute task to keep them engaged and coming to class.  For the nutrition class, I offered an extra credit assignment, ‘Who is this?’  For one class, I had a list of 10 walk-up songs from different students; students had to name the artist and tell me the full name of the student who claimed that as their ‘walk-up’ song.  Another class had to name the student learning online the farthest distance from campus and name the student whose birthplace was farthest from campus; they also had to list the exact city, state or country and distance in miles.  The third class had to list the first and last names of all graduating seniors in the class and their career goals.  For extra points, they all participated.  It was meant to encourage them to stay connected and think about something else. 

We had a share of glitches and mishaps, but my students stepped up to the plate.  The lack of equal access to the Internet could not be more painfully obvious.  One exercise physiology student informed me that his only access to the Internet was his cell phone.  He took the initiative to asked whether I would accept images of hand-written 1-2-3 worksheets sent to me by email.  He never missed an assignment and made arrangements to borrow a friend’s laptop for exams.  A nutrition student, I will call Brett was learning from home in a small town about 2 hours from the nearest ‘real’ town; his family home had no Internet and a poor mobile phone signal.  He emailed to explain that once his dad got paid he would buy the equipment and he would be online soon.  He was concerned about missed quizzes and the respective points and missed lectures.  What do you say to that?  When you know you have all the power, you must use that power to do good and not make anyone’s life harder than it has to be.  I re-opened quizzes and sent him links to the recorded lectures; he wasted no time catching up.  Then there was the matter of the nutrition presentations.  Another lifeline.  Students continued to work together, sending presentation files to each other and to me.  Students taught themselves to use Zoom, Google Slides, and the LMS video conference feature.  No one complained.  Multiple pairs wanted to present during the same session, so they could be an audience, lend moral support, and ask questions.  The presentations were impressive.  Students were so enthusiastic.  However, my favorite presentation was by Brett and ‘Josh’; they presented via the LMS conference feature.  Brett’s Internet cut out completely on second slide; he tried to reconnect to no avail.  I remained calm; they remained calm.  They decided Brett would call Josh; Josh would hold his cell phone to the mic on his computer so I could hear Brett narrate his part of the talk.  Teamwork!  Let your students inspire you.

I left time at the end of each lecture to offer encouraging words and reminders to stay safe and take care of themselves.  I also would state that I looked forward our next meeting.  As the semester was winding down end-of-lecture discussions and questions become more serious.  Across all classes the basic questions were similar.  “Will I graduate on time?  How will this impact my career plans?  Do you think this will be over by the Fall?  Do you think they’ll have a cure soon?”  There was no sugar coating this.  I would validate their concerns and offer my honest opinion in a kind-hearted manner.  My last virtual lecture was on a Friday in May.  I decided to name each graduating senior, so the class could congratulate and applaud for them.  A student asked me to give a commencement speech.  She was serious.  I remembered what my gut told me back in mid-March, and so I began.  “I cannot tell you how proud of how hard each of you has worked and how well you worked together.  Life is hard.  It’s ok to be scared.  You have risen to the occasion.  Keep rising.  Learn all you can from this situation.  You are meant to do great things, however subtle or grand.  You will fall and make mistakes.  You will need help along the way and must help others on their journey.  It has been a privilege to work with you.  I will think of you often and wish you well.”  Spring 2020*  *Helping my students form a community, an inclusive safe place to learn, think out loud, be wrong, correct mistakes, and help each other.  That is the practice I will continue to implement to create a better learning environment for students irrespective of world health status or platform. 

Alice Villalobos, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Education at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in Lubbock, Texas.  She received her B.S.in biology from Loyola Marymount University and her Ph.D. in comparative physiology from the University of Arizona-College of Medicine.  Her research interests are the comparative aspects of the physiology and stress biology of organic solute transport by choroid plexus.  She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in integrative systems physiology, nutrition and toxicology.  However, her most enjoyable teaching experience has been teaching first-graders about the heart and lungs!  Her educational interests focus on tools to enhance learning of challenging concepts in physiology for students at all levels.  She has been actively involved in social and educational programs to recruit and retain first-generation college students and underrepresented minorities in STEM. 
Cultivating a growth mindset for the work of diversity and inclusion
Lisa Carney Anderson, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN

I live in Minnesota and work at the University of Minnesota.

I’m sure you have read and heard about the Twin Cities in the news.  George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis. In addition, in the past few years, members of the Minneapolis Police have killed other Black citizens.  Consequently, a large number of people of all ages, colors and creeds poured into the streets to protest police brutality.  I am a White cis woman with privilege. Though I feel confident about my abilities as a physiologist and an educator, I’m not confident about the work of diversity and inclusion. Nonetheless, I am trying to figure out how I can use my privilege to provide a better learning and life experience for my students of color.

In 2018, at the Institute on Teaching and Learning, Katie Johnson of Trail Build, gave a powerful presentation on diversity and inclusion (2).  In her talk, she met us where we all lived.  She started by saying that she was a scientist and teacher.  If it was her job to be objective, what could she possibly do to promote diversity and inclusion?  Then she said something amazing.

We as physiologists ask our students to think in new ways.  We ask them to learn a lot of new terms: homeostasis, contractility, permeability, peristalsis and clearance.  Then we ask them to learn a lot of concepts.  Negative feedback mechanisms can maintain the cellular environment. Increased intracellular calcium increases the strength of a cardiac contraction.  Permeability is related to the number of open ion channels in a membrane. Peristalsis is a wave like contraction that moves contents along the gut lumen. Clearance is defined in terms how much plasma per unit of time is cleaned of a given substance.  Then we ask our student to put the terms and concepts into a framework that explains how the body works.  And we don’t ask students to do this sequentially, we ask them to accomplish this simultaneously.  Holy Smokes. That is hard work.  We ask our students to struggle with physiology.

So here is the amazing part.  If we ask our students to think in new ways to learn physiology, then we, as faculty, should be willing to think in new ways to address racism and equity in science and education. 

Dr. Johnson also gave us insight into the student experience.  For example, cold calling students is not a fair classroom practice.  I’ve learned that this is where small group discussion or Think-Pair-Share exercises (3) can be very helpful. If students have a chance to try out their ideas on a peer, then they may gain confidence to share an idea with the whole class. 

For example, I’ve also learned to be intentional when I set up student groups.  Here in very White Minnesota, I might have a few students of color.  I look at my class list and I look at the students’ pictures and try to make sure there are at least two students of color in a group even if that means some groups are all White. My process for assigning groups is far from perfect because, I may not recognize that a student identifies as non-white.  I don’t assume to know the comfort level of my students but my sense is that this practice addresses at least some of the stress of being the only person of color in a small group.  I have a colleague that calls imperfect classroom interventions like this, “filling in the gaps when a systemic solution is not available to address stereotype threats.”

So, what is a stereotype threat?

Before Mr. Floyd was murdered, I read the book, Whistling Vivaldi: how stereotypes affect us and what we can do, by Claude M. Steele (4).  From his work I have learned universities are power structures that can be very intimidating for students.  Through rigorous experimentation, Dr. Steele demonstrated how stereotype threat, or the stress of feeling marginalized interferes with a student’s performance. The burden of constantly feeling like you don’t belong is exhausting.  As I read this book, I thought back on my own experience as an undergraduate, first-generation, female. I was the only female in physics lab.  I felt like no one wanted to be my lab partner and no one wanted me there.  The lab teacher made jokes at my expense. I got Cs in physics.  Was it because I’m bad at physics?  Was it because I felt marginalized?  Is this how my students of color feel?

First of all, I’ve learned from Dr. Steele in Whistling Vivaldi and Dr. Johnson from Trail Build that there are things I can do to help my students with stereotype threats.  I can help them practice affirmation.  I’ll share with you how I do this in my Clinical Physiology Class.  This is a two-course series in which students from nursing anesthesia, biomedical engineering, physiology, kinesiology and other biological sciences come together to learn about pathophysiology and clinical physiology.  I assign the students to interdisciplinary groups such that representatives from all majors are distributed as evenly as possible throughout the groups.  I try to balance genders and make sure that no student of color is alone in a group of White students.  Then I encourage them in their discussions to think about the assets they bring to the conversation: leadership, math ability, problem solving, biochemistry knowledge, clinical experience, research experience, practicality, being a peacemaker and so on.  Because, as the American humorist, Will Rogers, is reported to have said, “We are all ignorant, only on different subjects.” I try to get them to see that they have knowledge their peers don’t have and that is why it is important for them to be present.

Second, I try to help my students have an incremental mindset rather than a fixed mindset.  This comes from the work of Carol Dweck (1) also described in Whistling Vivaldi. An incremental mindset is one in which a student might think “today, not possible but tomorrow, POSSIBLE.”  I tell my students that physiology is a way of thinking and you have to practice it.  No one is born knowing physiology and just because physiology is hard does not mean it is the wrong field for them. I want my students to realize I have had failures but they don’t define me. For example, I tell my students about the first time I took biochemistry when I was a senior in college.  I got a D and not because I didn’t work hard. I spent many lonely hours going over my notes but when it came time for the test, and I just couldn’t remember a single glucose molecule.  Then in graduate school, I took biochemistry again.  I got some large pieces of butcher paper.  I drew molecules and pathways and enzymes.  I drew them over and over from memory.  While I rode the bus, I reflected on how the pathways were related.  For fun I would predict what would happen if a particular enzyme did not work.  I used retrieval, mental models and reflection (though at the time I did not realize that’s what they were called).  I learned a lot of biochemistry, I earned a lot of confidence, and I got a good grade.  Now people call me Dr. Anderson.  Not because I’m a genius but because I know it is possible to grow into goals and aspirations.

Leading a classroom with an incremental mindset (also called a growth) mindset, in my opinion, is a powerful way for me to promote equity in my educational mission.  If I am honest with them about the struggles I’ve had, they might be willing to come into office hours and get some help. If students know that I went from a D to an A, they might think that they can do it too. Instead of seeing a poor grade on a test as the limit of their knowledge, they might see it as room to grow and work they need to do.  If they stay in the class, they can realize that improvement; if they drop the class, they are behind in completing their program and behind financially. If I can keep a student of color from dropping the class and help them with study skills, then that is one small step for equity.

Finally, as we make our way towards the fall, it is important to acknowledge that some of our students, especially our students of color and our Black students may have experienced trauma in their lifetimes.  They are traumatized by the isolating effects of the pandemic. They are traumatized by seeing repeated airings of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. They are traumatized due to societal inequities that value their lives and bodies and education less than others. We must acknowledge their experience.

Two weeks ago, one of my medical physiology students invited me to a rally at the St. Paul State Capitol as part of “White Coats for Black Lives.”  At first, I didn’t want to go. I was scared of getting exposed to the Covid-19 virus.  But nonetheless I found myself typing in an email, “How can I participate?” My student invited me so I had to be part of the solution. So, I put on my black mask and my white coat and I headed to the State Capital.  I spoke to my students, and they offered me a sign. “SILENCE IS COMPLICITY.”  I found my spot on the lawn and I held up my sign. The lawn was full of health care providers and educators from all over the Twin Cities.   I listened to an inspiring student-led protest in favor of providing health care access for all, increasing the diversity of student and faculty bodies and ending race-based medicine.  I was deeply moved by the experience and I was glad I came.  Our students of color and their allies are demanding more of us as faculty, departments and institutions.

I’m getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. I’m ready to listen because I am not an expert in anti-racism and I’m ready to work even though I might make some mistakes along the way.  I’m hoping to cultivate a growth mindset around issues of racism and spending my time listening to experts, reading on my own and learning. We ask this of our students every day and we as faculty can do no less.

References:

  1. Claro S, Paunesku D, Dweck CS. Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016;113(31):8664-8668.
  2. Johnson, K.M.S. Inclusive Practices for Diverse Student Populations. Plenary. APS Institute on Teaching and Learning, Madison, WI, June 18-22, 2018.
  3. Lyman, F. “The responsive classroom discussion.” In Anderson, A. S. (Ed.), Mainstreaming Digest. College Park, MD: University of Maryland College of Education, 1981.
  4. Steele, C.S. Whistling Vivaldi: how stereotypes affect us and what we can do, W.W Norton & Company: New York, 2010.

Lisa Carney Anderson is an Associate Professor and Director of Education in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology at the University of Minnesota. She completed her doctoral training in muscle physiology at the University of Minnesota. She directs the first-year medical physiology course. She also teaches nurse anesthesia students, dental students and undergraduates. She is the 2012 recipient of the Didactic Instructor of the Year Award from the American Association of Nurse Anesthesia.  She co-authored a physiology workbook called Cells to Systems: Critical thinking exercises in Physiology, Kendall Hunt Press. Dr. Anderson’s teaching interests include encouraging active learning through retrieval and assessment of student reflection.  She has joined the APS Teaching Section Steering Committee as Secretary.

Embracing the Instability of Positive Feedback Loops

Feedback loops are a physiology professor’s bread and butter.  From blood sugar to body temperature, negative feedback ensures that no physiological variable strays from its set point (or range) and that homeostasis is maintained.  Positive feedback loops, on the other hand, are inherently unstable.  In these loops, the response elicited by a stimulus drives the variable further from its set point, reinforcing the stimulus rather than reducing it, and continuing until some outside influence intervenes1.  The classic physiological example of positive feedback is childbirth – pressure from the baby on the mother’s uterus and cervix triggers the release of the hormone oxytocin, which triggers uterine muscle contractions that further push the baby toward the cervix.  This loop of pressure, oxytocin release, and contractions continues until an intervening event occurs – the delivery of the baby.

While physiological positive feedback loops are fascinating, they are greatly outnumbered by negative feedback loops; thus, they don’t usually get much attention in our physiology classrooms.  We usually tell students that the instability of positive feedback loops is what makes them so uncommon.  However, I’d like to use my platform here to argue for a larger place for positive feedback loops in not just our physiology courses, but all of our courses.

 

Positive Feedback Loop Learning

I mentioned above that positive feedback loops are inherently unstable because they drive variables further from their set points, so you may be thinking, “why would I ever want my classroom to be unstable?”  Imagine it this way:  in this feedback loop, the stimulus is an idea, concept, or problem posed by the instructor.  The response is the student’s own investigation of the stimulus, which hopefully sparks further curiosity in the student about the topic at hand, and drives him or her toward more investigation and questioning.  Granted, this system of learning could certainly introduce some instability and uncertainty to the classroom.  Once sparked, the instructor does not have control over the student’s curiosity, which may take the student outside of the instructor’s area of expertise.  However, I maintain that this instability actually enriches our classroom by giving students the space to think critically.

 

Why Encourage Positive Feedback Loops?

Though often misattributed (or even misquoted), Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (poet, essayist, physician, and father of US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.) once wrote “Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”2 Neuroscience research supports this assertion.  In rodents, exposure to novel stimuli in enriched environments enhances neuronal long-term potentiation, the cellular correlate of learning and memory in the brain3.  Human brains both functionally and structurally reorganize upon learning new information.  A magnetic resonance imaging study examined gray matter volume in the brains of German medical students who were studying for their “Physikum,” an extensive exam covering biology, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, human anatomy, and physiology4.  Brain scans taken 1-2 days after the Physikum demonstrated significantly increased gray matter volume in the parietal cortex and hippocampus compared to baseline scans taken 3 months prior to the exam (and prior to extensive exposure to new information during the study period)4.  Thus, while the brain may not literally be “stretched” by new ideas, as Holmes proposed, the process of learning (acquisition, encoding, and retrieval of new information) certainly reshapes the brain.

In the model I’ve presented above, new ideas, concepts, and questions are the stimuli in our positive feedback loop.  These stimuli promote changes in our student’s brains.  And, if these stimuli spark curiosity, these brain changes (and thus learning) will be amplified as students respond – meaning, as they construct new ideas, concepts, and questions based on their own interests.  Thus, the loop feeds into itself.

 

Designing Stimuli That Elicit Positive Feedback

How can we structure our teaching so that the stimulus we present to our students is strong enough to elicit a response?  First, it is crucial that our stimuli elicit curiosity in our students. In his essay surveying recent research on the role of curiosity in academic success, David Barry Kaufman wrote, “Stimulating classroom activities are those that offer novelty, surprise, and complexity, allowing greater autonomy and student choice; they also encourage students to ask questions, question assumptions, and achieve mastery through revision rather than judgment-day-style testing.”5  Project-based learning, a teaching technique focused on extended engagement with a problem or task as a means of constructing knowledge, checks many of Kaufman’s boxes6.  As an example, in the past two iterations of my Physiology course, my students have participated in the “Superhero Physiology Project” in which they develop interactive lesson plans for middle school students.  Based on the work of E. Paul Zehr, Ph.D. (author of Becoming Batman: The Possibility of Superhero7 and multiple APS Advances in Physiology Education articles), my students choose a superhero to base their lesson upon, and work over the course of several weeks to create interactive, hands-on activities to teach kids about a physiological system.  While I give my students feedback on the plausibility of their ideas (within our time and budgetary constraints), I leave much of the structure of their lessons open so that they have the opportunity to work through the complexities that come with keeping 20 or more middle schoolers engaged.  Often, my students tell me that figuring out the best way to communicate physiological concepts for a young audience encouraged them to go beyond our textbook to search for new analogies and real-life examples of physiology to which middle schoolers could relate.

Another way to design stimuli that elicit curiosity and positive feedback learning is by capitalizing on a student’s naiveté.  In this approach, described by education expert Kimberly Van Orman of the University of Albany in The Chronicle of Higher Education8, “students don’t need to know everything before they can do anything” – meaning, curiosity is most easily sparked when possibilities aren’t limited by your existing knowledge, because you don’t have any!  For me, this approach is somewhat difficult.  Like all instructors, I regularly feel the pressure to ensure we “get through the material” and often plow through concepts too quickly.  However, my physiology students last fall showed me the power of the “naïve task” firsthand when I observed the Superhero Physiology lesson9 they gave at the middle school.  They decided that before teaching the middle schoolers any physiological terms or concepts didactically, they would present them with a hands-on experiment to introduce the concepts of stroke volume and vasoconstriction.  Their rationale and approach (below) illustrate their mastery of using naiveté to spark curiosity.

Rationale:

The students should be provided with very little, if any, background information on the heart models and the reasoning behind the varying sizes of the materials. By providing little information up front, we hope to intrigue their curiosity regarding the lesson and its significance. Students will be told what to do with the instruments; however, they will not receive any advice on which instruments to use.

The Experiment:

  1. Divide the class into two groups (within each group there should be 4-5 “holders” for the tubes and 4-5 “pumpers” managing water and pipets). Group 1 will be given large diameter tubing, a large funnel as well as 3 large volume pipettes. Group 2 will receive smaller tubing, a smaller funnel and only one smaller volume pipet.
  2. Instruct the students that they will be transporting the water from a large bucket into another bucket 8-10 feet across the room without moving the bucket.
  3. The groups will have 10 minutes to construct their apparatus, and 5 minutes for the actual head-to-head “race” in which the winner is determined by who moves the most amount of water in the allotted time.
  4. After the students have completed the first experiment they will return to their seats for the lecture portion of the lesson which will connect the different parts of the build to different portions of the cardiovascular system.

 

Not only did the middle school students have a fantastic time building their apparatus (and accidentally on purpose getting each other wet!), but as the experiment progressed, they began to get curious about why the other team was so behind or ahead.  Soon after, discussions between groups about tubing diameter and pipet size emerged organically among the middle schoolers, and they were able to easily apply these concepts to later discussions of blood flow and cardiac output.

 

Embracing Instability

While I think most educators aspire to elicit positive feedback learning in their students, there can be barriers to putting it into practice.  As I mentioned above, pressure to cover content results in some of us shying away from open-ended activities and projects.  Not all students in a given class will come in with the same motivations for learning (as discussed in Dr. Ryan Downey’s December 2018 PECOP Blog post10), nor will they all respond to the same stimuli with curiosity.  However, it just takes one stimulus to put a positive feedback loop into action – and once it gets going, it’s hard to stop.  Once a student’s curiosity is piqued, the classroom may feel a bit unstable as their interests move out of the realm of your expertise as an instructor.  But ultimately, we all as educators live for that moment when a connection crystallizes in a student’s mind and they discover a new question they can’t wait to answer.

 

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Wabash students James Eaton, Sam Hayes, Cheng Ge, and Hunter Jones for sharing an excerpt of their middle school lesson.

 

References

1 Silverthorn DU. (2013).  Human physiology, an integrated approach (6th Ed.). Pearson.

2 Holmes OW. (1858). The autocrat of the breakfast-table. Boston:  Phillips, Sampson and Company.

3 Hullinger R, O’Riordan K, Burger C.  (2015).  Environmental enrichment improves learning and memory and long-term potentiation in young adult rats through a mechanism requiring mGluR5 signaling and sustained activation of p70s6k.  Neurobiol Learn Mem 125:126-34.

4 Draganski B, Gaser C, Kempermann G, Kuhn HG, Winkler J, Büchel C, May A. (2006).  Temporal and spatial dynamics of brain structure changes during extensive learning.  J Neurosci 26(23):6314-17.

5  Kaufman,SB. (2017, July 24).  Schools are missing what matters about learning.  The Atlantic.  Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/the-underrated-gift-of-curiosity/534573/

6 What is PBL? (n.d.) Retrieved from https://www.pblworks.org/what-is-pbl

7 Zehr, EP. (2008).  Becoming Batman: the possibility of a superhero.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

8 Supiano, B. (2018, June 7). How one teaching expert activates students’ curiosity. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-One-Teaching-Expert/243609

9 Eaton J, Hayes S, Ge C, Jones H. (2018).  Superhero cardio: the effects of blood vessel diameter, stroke volume, and heart rate on cardiac output. Unpublished work, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, IN.

10 Downey, R.  (2018, December 13).  Affective teaching and motivational instruction: becoming more effective educators of science. [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.lifescitrc.org/pecop/2018/12/13/affective-teaching-and-motivational-instruction-becoming-more-effective-educators-of-science/

 
Heidi Walsh has been an Assistant Professor of Biology at Wabash College since 2014. She received a B.S. in Neuroscience from Allegheny College, a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Virginia, and completed post-doctoral work in the Department of Metabolism & Aging at The Scripps Research Institute’s Florida campus.  Heidi’s research lab studies the impact of obesity-related stressors, including endoplasmic reticulum stress, on gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons. She teaches courses in Cell Biology, Physiology, and Molecular Endocrinology, and enjoys collaborating with students on science outreach projects.
Graduate Student Ambassadors: An APS Effort to Increase Involvement in Professional Societies

The Graduate Student Ambassador (GSA) program was organized by the American Physiological Society’s (APS) Trainee Advisory Committee in 2015. The goal of the program is to train graduate students to act as liaisons between APS and local undergraduate and graduate students. GSAs visit schools in their local area to share their experiences as graduate students, discuss physiology careers and the benefits of an APS membership, and encourage students to consider becoming a member of APS. The program has a unique, symbiotic relationship in that GSAs learn valuable outreach, public speaking, and leadership skills, while APS receives promotion of their awards, programs, and memberships. One particular goal of the GSA program is to recruit and retain individuals from under-represented communities. This is the aim that attracted me to the program.

 

As a first-generation college student, I was raised in a very low socioeconomic background. My exposure to careers was limited and like countless other young girls, I grew up with a short supply of role models who looked like me. While most of my public school teachers were female, the science labs and principal’s offices were considered masculine domains. In my mind, a scientist was that image we all remember of the mad chemist brewing his potions in a lab, hair all in disarray. Although I got the messy hair right, I couldn’t picture myself as this version of a scientist. I didn’t know anything about college because nobody in my life had ever been to one. I certainly didn’t know what a Ph.D. was at the time. By luck and happenstance, I wound up at the University of Kentucky for my undergraduate studies as a nontraditional student following community college. UK is a Research 1 institution, so I was exposed to the scientific method from the start. However, looking back, I’ve always wondered what if I had attended a different university? Would I have ever found my niche in research? And, thus, is the goal of the GSA program: to expose students to careers in research and promulgate the ways in which APS can assist them in these pursuits.

 

When I first got wind of the new GSA program, I was quick to apply. From the beginning, I was excited by the prospect of sharing my experiences as a graduate student with undergraduates. I knew I wanted to visit less research-intensive universities and try to reach under-represented students, first-generation college students, and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. I recognized the need for diversity in STEM and wanted to contribute to efforts being made to increase it. According to the National Science Foundation, while blacks and Hispanics constitute 36% of the US resident population ages 18-24, they only represent 17% of enrolled graduate students. There is even less representation at the level of doctorate holders (Figure 3). Ethnic and cultural representations in science do not match their share in the US population. However, it is absolutely essential to the growth of STEM to sample from all groups of people.

 

Science is meant to be an objective process, but much of science has been shaped by individuals of a similar background. This not only halts progress but can actually hurt it. For example, the standard medical treatment for breast cancer used to be radical mastectomies. It wasn’t until female voices were welcomed that alternative treatments were implemented—treatments that allowed women to keep their breasts and have been shown to be just as, if not more, effective. Progress was made because of a different perspective. The same is true of drug development, our understanding of sex differences in cardiovascular disease, even air-bag design which was initially tailored to a man’s height and thus not as effective for women. A diverse and inclusive program can promote widely applicable and lifelong learning so that historically under-represented groups can contribute to future breakthroughs with a new perspective. If fields are not diverse and inclusive, we are not cultivating potential but instead losing talent.

 

Berea College, the first coeducational and interracial college in the south, is an example of an ongoing effort to increase inclusion. This school, located in Berea, Kentucky, is a 4-year university that offers a tuition-free education to every single student. They enroll academically promising, economically challenged students from every state in the U.S. and 60 other countries. Over one third of their student population are of color, 8% are international, and 70% are from the Appalachian region and Kentucky. They are inclusive regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, race, citizenship status, etc. Despite not being a research intensive university, they have an excellent science program with a newly built Natural Sciences and Health building featuring state-of-the-art teaching laboratory equipment. They also encourage students to participate in the Kentucky Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network, a program designed to support undergraduate students in biomedical research, promote collaboration, and improve access to biomedical facilities.

 

I wanted to visit Berea to share my experiences as a graduate student, discuss the different career paths within physiology, and provide interested students with information about beneficial awards and programs offered through APS. Many of the students I spoke with didn’t know much about graduate school or obtaining a Ph.D. They seemed intrigued by my experience as a teaching assistant to fund my program. Berea College offers a unique work program at their school where students work as part of their tuition-free enrollment. Some act as teaching assistants in their courses, giving these students the experience they need to enter a funded graduate program with a teaching component. A lot of the students didn’t realize, though, that you could simply apply to a doctoral program with a bachelor’s degree—they thought you needed to obtain a master’s degree first. Most of the students were particularly interested in the undergraduate summer research programs offered through APS, such as the STRIDE fellowship. They wanted to know more about the Porter Physiology Development Fellowship for graduate students. I was also very excited to share with them the Martin Frank Diversity Travel Fellowship Award to attend the Experimental Biology conference.

 

I had a meaningful and productive visit to Berea College. My next step will be visiting a local community college, another area where efforts to promote diversity and inclusion are progressing. Community colleges are also an excellent place to reach nontraditional students, such as myself. These students sometimes transfer to larger universities to finish their bachelor’s degree, but being a transfer student often doesn’t allow for exposure to research as an undergraduate. I hope to encourage these students to pursue careers in physiology.

 

If you’re interested in contributing to this mission, consider applying to become a GSA. The position is a 2 year term and requires you to attend Experimental Biology each year of your term. The applications for 2019 are currently under review.

 

References

National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. 2017. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2017. Special Report NSF 17-310. Arlington, VA. Available at www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/.

 

Chelsea C. Weaver is a fourth year PhD candidate at the University of Kentucky where she studies hypertensive pregnancy disorders in African Green Monkeys. She has served as a teaching assistant for Principles of Genetics and Animal Physiology for undergraduates. She also guest-lectured for graduate level Advanced Physiology courses. Chelsea is interested in pursuing a postdoctoral position in STEM education research in K-16 upon graduation.
Scientific Literacy: A Challenge, a Task, a Poem

Scientific literacy allows citizens to get involved in issues and ideas related to science as a reflective citizen[1]. A scientifically literate person can:

  1. Recognize, offer and evaluate explanations for a variety of scientific and technological phenomena
  2. Describe and evaluate scientific research and propose ways to answer questions and solve problems following the scientific method
  3. Analyze and evaluate data, concepts and arguments in a variety of contexts, reaching appropriate conclusions for the data received[1]

 

The challenge

Quality education is the key to achieving literate societies. Unfortunately, scientific literacy is generally very low in most developing countries. Results of the PISA tests, for example, reveal that competencies in mathematics and sciences in developing countries are below the average of the countries evaluated[2]. This has enormous consequences for the communities by negatively impacting their political, economic and social decision-making.

 

Figure 1. Performance in mathematics and science of different countries in the 2015 Pisa tests. Images Taken from http://www.oecd.org/pisa/.[2]

 

The task

It is very important to open spaces for the general community in developing countries to learn about the practice of science. Many scientific organizations develop training activities that are usually directed at specialized audiences. For this reason, it is important to highlight the task of scientific associations that are concerned with bringing science to the general community such as the American Physiological Society through events such as PhUn week. In the particular case of Colombia, the Colombian Association for the Advancement of Science (ACAC) organizes every two years a very large science fair “Expociencia” that is visited by more than 40,000 elementary, middle and high school students.

 

These science fairs have several objectives:

  1. Allow students to present the results of scientific projects. Students are exposed to an essential component of science, sharing and communicating research. In addition, they have the opportunity to learn from their peers and receive feedback from more experienced researchers.
  2. Open the doors of academic, governmental or industry laboratories to the community. Visitors have the opportunity to know what scientists do, interact with them, expose their visions about science. In addition, visitors can express doubts they have about different concepts, and sometimes they can find answers to their questions.
  3. Generate academic spaces so that researchers can discuss how to work with the community, address their most pressing needs and communicate their results to the public.

Figure 2. Participation of students in academic activities at Expociencia 2018. Images courtesy of Deiryn Reyes, ACAC.

Recently with the support of the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad de los Andes, I had the opportunity to participate in Expociencia[3]. It was gratifying to see how the children ran from one side to the other having the opportunity to learn about electronics, physics, programming, biology, medicine and anthropology. These children are like sponges that quickly absorb the information they receive and are willing to ask questions without filtering them through mechanisms that adults have learned. In addition, Expociencia promotes spaces for university students to share their experiences and for a moment to be role models for school students. I believe that many lives are changed thanks to the experience of living science.

 

The poem

In the nineteenth century lived a poet who wrote and translated from other languages several of the best-known stories that are known by children and adults in Colombia. His influence on Colombian literature is similar to that of the Grimm brothers in Europe. The name of this writer was Rafael Pombo. A few weeks ago, thanks to my son, I had the opportunity to learn that he also wrote about the importance of knowledge and science. On this occasion I want to share a personal translation of one of Rafael Pombo´s poems, that can be used to discuss with small children and adults the importance of science in our lives.

 

THE CHILD AND THE OX

Rafael Pombo (1833-1912)

The boy

 

-What do you think about all day

Lying on the grass?

You seem to me a great doctor

Enraptured in his science.

 

The ox

-The science, dear child

It is not what feeds me;

That is the fruit of study,

With what God gives humans.

 

Out thinking for me,

Poor animal, hard enterprise;

I prefer to make thirty furrows

Before learning two letters.

 

Chewing well, I care more

that a lesson at school.

With the teeth, I chew,

You, child, with your head.

 

But if you want to be wise

Hopefully seeing me you´ll learn

To ruminate, and ruminate a lot,

Every bit of science.

 

Digesting, not eating,

It is what the body takes advantage of,

And the soul, invisible body,

has to follow such a rule.

 

Without ruminating it well, do not swallow

Not a line, not a letter;

The one who learns like a parrot,

Ignorant parrot stays.

 

References

  1. National Academies of Sciences, E., and Medicine., Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequence. 2016.
  2. OECD. Results by Country. [cited 2018 November 4th]; Available from: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/.
  3. Ciencia, A.C.p.e.A.d.l. Expociencia 2018. 2018 [cited 2018 October 31st]; Available from: https://expociencia.co/home/.
Ricardo A. Peña-Silva M.D., PhD is an associate professor at the Universidad de los Andes, School of Medicine in Bogota, Colombia, where he is the coordinator of the physiology and pharmacology courses for second-year medical students. He received his doctorate in Pharmacology from The University of Iowa in Iowa City. His research interests are in aging, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease and medical education. He works in incorporation and evaluation of educational technology in biomedical education.

He enjoys spending time with his kids. Outside the office he likes running and riding his bicycle in the Colombian mountains.