Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Learn from your mistakes!


OK, you know you're supposed to "go over" your test or exam after its over. But HOW do you do that . . . WHY should you do that . . . and WHAT SHOULD YOU BE GETTING OUT OF IT?

The reason you should do it is so that you can learn from your mistakes. Not only will you need those concepts you missed when you take the final exam, you'll need them to understand the rest of the course.

Besides, you're going to have to identify and fix any problems with your test-taking skills.

If you just casually scan your test, then you may not get much out of it. You need to take a more organized, focused approach.

Here's a brief video running down how this works.



Want a FREE sample Test Analysis Chart?  More information on how to analyze your test?  Then go to lionden.com/testreview.htm

A skull a day?



Well with a certain holiday coming up soon, it's probably a good time to share one of my favorite blogs with you . . . a crazy, wonderful blog called SKULL-A-DAY that you should visit.
The project started out when this guy named Noah Scalin made a paper skull and posted it, then kept on making skulls in various media and in different forms every day for a year.

Then folks just kept adding to it and, well, now it's a pretty big project.  The one shown here is one of my favorites . . . a skull carved from a watermelon! There's even a book version now! The book is called SKULLS of course.

As many of you A&P students are skull fans by now, or ought to be, I thought you might like to see all those skulls.


For Facebook users, there's an application called Send-A-Skull that allows you to send skulls to your friends.



Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Help with learning the skeleton


My students are now struggling with learning all those darn bone markings in lab.  Last week, I shared one of their suggestions . . . the bone dance from the Hannah Montana TV series.

They also have found it useful to learn the naming system for bone markings first, before trying to even find the specific markings on the skeleton.  This method for understanding the conceptual framework before you begin learning a list of structures is more fully explained in my Survival Guide For Anatomy And Physiology: Tips, Techniques And Shortcuts.

In the Survival Guide, I explain how learning bone markings is like learning geography.  Before you can find specific calderas on a map, you have to know what a caldera is.  Should you be looking for a stream?  A mountain?  A valley?  Once you know a caldera is a volcanic mountain that has collapsed for form a big crater, it's easy to find any caldera assigned to you on a map.  You won't waste your time and effort looking at every feature . . . just the big craters.  And knowing what a caldera is, you'll remember what it looks like as you learn the name.

Thus, if you learn that a condyle is a rounded bump where a bone articulates (joins) with another bone, it's easy to find and remember all the condyles in the skeleton.  If you know that a foramen is hole, then finding them (and remembering them) is now that much easier.

When we compare learning anatomy to learning geography, we are using an analogy.  Such analogies are comparisons that help us learn. 



Something my students have found to be really, really helpful in finding good analogies for learning the bone markings is the Visual Analogy Guide series.  This series has been used by my students for a couple of years now and my students love them.

Created by my friend Paul Krieger at Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC), the Visual Analogy Guides really meet the students where they are at to help them master some of those little tricks for learning the core concepts of an A&P course.

Using his considerable skills as an illustrator and his great talent as a teacher, Paul has put together some great tools that help students focus their study time by using visual and kinesthetic processes to help them learn "the hard parts" of A&P.

Check out his video
, in which he explains how the Visual Analogy Guides work.

100 Best Web Tools for Science Students


I recently became aware of a new website that includes a handy list of the 100 Best Web Tools for Science Students. It includes virtual laboratories and experiments, explorations and web quests, basic foundations and principles, research and collaboration sites, modeling and mapping tools, plus links to search engines and databases.

Although the list includes resources covering a variety of science topics, several could be very useful to A&P students. Just a few examples:
1. Virtual Labs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute A free tool that enables students to take on the role of scientist, technician, doctor, and immunologist. They participate in labs on topics related to cardiology, immunology, and bacterial identification.

57. Note Mesh A web 2.0 app that allows college students in the same science classes to share notes online using a wiki set-up.

73. Flashcard Exchange Print flashcards, create flashcards and study science topics online with this tool, the world’s largest flashcard library.

86. Virtual Cell A simulation of the look and feel of moving through an actual cell or cellular component. Students are encouraged to play the role of a biologist and examine cellular organelles, conduct experiments and form conclusions.
But be careful! There are a lot fun links, like virtual field trips to the plains of Africa, that might distract you from studying A&P. Well, OK, it's a good thing to have a little fun, too.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Bone song and dance


You can't dance without your skeleton, right? But can you sing and dance about the skeleton? Well, the TV character Hannah Montana thought so when she needed to learn the bones for her A&P class.

As I've mentioned before silly songs are a great learning tool!
(see Pinky & the Brain and Pump your blood)

You'll want to see the video showing the song and dance.




Then you'll want to see the video that helps you learn the lyrics.