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Integrating Quantitative Experiments into the Physiology Classroom
Author(s) -
Anjur Sowmya
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.27.1_supplement.739.10
Subject(s) - mathematics education , sphygmomanometer , blood pressure , class (philosophy) , test (biology) , medical education , psychology , computer science , medicine , biology , artificial intelligence , paleontology
Physiology and Disease is a student led inquiry based class at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a teaching laboratory to encourage creative learning. Students in this course design and execute their own experiments and analyze their data based on the evidence they have gathered. Students with more of a Math or Physics background than Biology who take this course sometimes have more trouble visualizing the concepts behind their experimental designs than those with a Biology background. Some students also seem to have trouble measuring their blood pressure using the traditional sphygmomanometer. Student surveys have also indicated the need for more quantitation in lab experiments. To accommodate all these issues, several changes are being implemented into the course. One of the changes involves supplementing the existing sphygmomanometer measurements with blood pressure sensor measurements which allows students to test for accuracy and also graph their blood pressure measurements at the same time. Similar changes are planned for lung capacity and heart rate measurements, in an effort to allow students to identify the role of the neuronal controls for these parameters, and to understand better how they work in concert.