Physiology applied to everyday: the practice of professional contextualization of physiology concepts as a way of facilitating learning

Abstract

THE TEACHING OF PHYSIOLOGY is indispensable in many biological and health disciplines. Physiology is one of the major components of the curriculum in a number of life science courses, including the study of life, cells, tissues, and organisms as well as their functions (7). A bigger challenge for physiology teachers is to make physiological concepts attractive to students, particularly since students of different majors are often assigned to the same class (1). The health professional, especially, needs a foundation of contextualized learning to make learning more meaningful to them, without losing quality.This foundation depends on student-centered teaching methods that assist the student in building on previous learning to prepare to be a knowledgeable future health professional. Furthermore, since physiology is sometimes a difficult course, physiology teachers need to be conscious that different teaching-learning strategies are preferable for helping different students learn (3).United States National Science Education Standards encourages teachers to assume the roles of facilitators of student learning instead of simply imparters of knowledge. Teachers/ facilitators help students become active in their learning by developing their own questions, drawing on their own experiences, analyzing and interpreting data, and drawing their own conclusions (6). However, to be successful with this approach, teachers need to design learning experiences in which scientific investigation is the norm and not the exception (6). Thus, it is not possible to improve the learning of a majority of students without improving learning about learning for a majority of teachers (4). To understand physiology completely, students need to acquire knowledge and competencies to be able to interpret complicated problems and cases (9).Thus, pedagogies that incorporate both personal and professional aspects of the physiological concepts should improve student-teacher interactions and build a strong foundation for student learning. Traditionally, physiology has been taught as a classroom course, with a mixture of lecture and laboratory experiences to introduce concepts (2). The objective of this report is to reflect on the experience of enhancing physiology teaching with seminars to contextualize the concepts of physiology into everyday health professional practice. Design of the ActivitiesBased on the principle described above, we offered seminars about human physiology related to the practice of health professionals. Seminars were offered with parallels to topics in theoretical and practical classes during extracurricular time to stimulate student participation. Participation in the seminars was not compulsory and not limited to students in the course; thus, the seminars were broadly attended throughout the institution. When we organized this activity, we hypothesized that this innovative pedagogy would improve student motivation for learning and enhance results of student learning (7).Thus, this activity offers students of different levels a...

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