Core concepts in physiology: teaching homeostasis through pattern recognition

Abstract

Homeostasis is a core concept in systems physiology that future clinicians and biomedical professionals will apply in their careers. Despite this, many students struggle to transfer the principles governing homeostasis to concrete examples. Precourse assessments conducted on 72 undergraduate biology students enrolled in an introductory systems physiology course at the University of Belgrade during the February–May semester of 2021 revealed that students had a vague, fragmentary understanding of homeostasis and its related concepts that was often conflated with topics touched on during their previous coursework. We formalized and implemented an approach to teaching homeostasis that focused heavily on consistent reinforcement of physiological reflex patterns throughout the course. To that end, we employed a variety of activities aimed at getting students to view organ system integration holistically. After the semester, postcourse assessment demonstrated that students were better able to provide concrete examples of organ system contributions to homeostasis and were more adept at applying basic principles to novel physiological scenarios. Comparison of final grades with previous semesters revealed that students outperformed their peers who had taken the course previously. In this article, we summarize the findings of pre- and postcourse assessments, describe the general approach we took to teaching homeostasis as well as the specific techniques used in the classroom, and compare student performance with previous semesters.

Chatbot responses suggest that hypothetical biology questions are harder than realistic ones

“…Student interviews indicated that the novel scenarios were indeed more successful in eliciting HOCS ( 11 ). This qualitative result provides some empirical support for others’ stated preferences for unfamiliar scenarios in summative assessments (e.g., 12 – 15 ).…”

A trio of biological rhythms and their relevance in rhythmic mechanical stimulation of cell cultures

“…Furthermore, as the ensemble starts to interact with other ensembles, it becomes a structure like an orchestral ensemble where the interactions between different sections of the orchestra are extremely sensitive and intricate to form some kind of homeostasis usually led by a conductor. The model is intentionally reductive and can be made more specific by exploring additional physical examples such as the seven-step model (stimulus, receptor, input, integrating center, output, effector, and response) presented by Chirillo et al (2021). Still, we think it is also essential to try to pin down the core patterns from complex processes to get an overview and understanding of the discussed rhythms in this article at a macroscale.…”

Bonding Nature of Science (NOS) and Nature of the Sciences (NOTSs) with Conceptual Knowledge: Introducing NOS and NOTSs Learning Objectives into the Teaching of ‘Homeostasis’

“…The resulting conceptual model can be formulated using the terms found in brackets (sensor, control center, effector; Modell et al, 2015) and comprises a proper elaboration of textbook's conceptual learning objectives. The sensor, control center, and effectors may be physically far from each other in the body and represent the components of a typical control system (Chirillo et al, 2021). Students can use these terms to think about how the human body remains constant despite the higher environmental temperature.…”