Technology Empowered Physiology Learning
Yanko Michea,
University of
Cynthia Phelps,
ABSTRACT:
The main objective of medical education is the development of professionals capable of accurately and efficiently diagnosing and treating patients. Research has shown that learning of some specific content can be especially difficult and prone to error. These conceptual errors can persist throughout the doctors' education, interfering with their clinical decision making.
The corrections of these misconceptions using traditional teaching methodologies have proven to be of limited usefulness. Lectures and practical experiences can be effective for some of these students, but unfortunately, the results haven't been cost effective. Technology-based interventions have been tested in medical education but the results have been diverse. Most of the explanations of these inconsistencies have been articulated around the complexity of the learning process and the diversity of the technologies used.
In physiology, one common misconception is related to the comprehension of the response of the respiratory system to exercise. We have developed a program to teach this complex system, mapping the contents involved in this topic with specific media. Content was categorized using a Systems Theory Framework, and we used an evidence-based approach to determine the best representation for each content category. The software presents the contents to students in three sections: Basic Anatomy of the Respiratory System, Respiratory Dynamics Overview, and Respiratory System Response to Exercise. The first section deals with structural information, the second with dynamics of the system, and the third with control of the system and response to exercise. This educational software uses interactive animation to represent the rules of this system, allowing the student not only to view the normal function, but also to test their conceptions, contrasting and challenging their mental models. We anticipate this process will facilitate conceptual change and the development of new knowledge based in this virtual experience. Other kinds of knowledge required to understand the respiratory system, like anatomy or ventilatory dynamics are also provided in the form of text and animations.
As part of the evaluation process for our program, we have prepared two additional applications using more traditional content representations. The contents are the same as in our highly interactive application, but the learner is not able to directly interact with the rules they are learning to predict and test their understanding. Contrasting how students learn in these diverse technology-based scenarios will help us to understand how to improve the use of technology, in order to empower learning, not only for these misconceptions but also in general biomedical education.
Once this evaluation is complete, we have planned to expand this project to other physiology domains that are difficult for students to learn, with increased dynamics and control complexity, such as the cardiovascular system.
BENEFIT TO
PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:
Teaching complex systems in physiology and especially changing misconceptions are challenging education tasks. Highly interactive animations can be powerful tools, especially if they are part of a cognitive strategy. This electronic poster presentation will offer a opportunity to test one of these interactive applications, to experience the effect of diverse content representations, and to talk about theoretical issues that can have great impact in learning in medical students and in general.
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Yanko F. Michea, MD School of Health Information Science University of Texas - Houston 7000 Fannin, Suite 600 Houston, Texas 77030 Phone: 713-500-3457 Fax: 713-500-3929 |
CO-AUTHORS: Cynthia L. Phelps, PhD School of Health Information Science University of Texas - Houston 7000 Fannin, Suite 600 Houston, Texas 77030 Phone: 713-500-3926 Fax: 713-500-3929 Email: mailto:Cynthia.L.Phelps@uth.tmc.edu |