The implementation of clay modeling and rat dissection into the human anatomy and physiology curriculum of a large urban community college

After a considerable amount of research and experimentation, cat dissection was replaced with rat dissection and clay modeling in the human anatomy and physiology laboratory curricula at La Guardia Community College (LAGCC), a large urban community college of the City University of New York (CUNY). This article describes the challenges faculty overcame and the techniques used to solve them. Methods involved were: developing a laboratory manual in conjunction with the publisher, holding training sessions for faculty and staff, the development of instructional outlines for students and lesson plans for faculty, the installation of storage facilities to hold mannequins instead of cat specimens, and designing mannequin clean‐up techniques that could be used by more than one thousand students each semester. The effectiveness of these curricular changes was assessed by examining student muscle practical examination grades and the responses of faculty and students to questionnaires. The results demonstrated that the majority of faculty felt prepared to teach using clay modeling and believed the activity was effective in presenting lesson content. Students undertaking clay modeling had significantly higher muscle practical examination grades than students undertaking cat dissection, and the majority of students believed that clay modeling was an effective technique to learn human skeletal, respiratory, and cardiovascular anatomy, which included the names and locations of blood vessels. Furthermore, the majority of students felt that rat dissection helped them learn nervous, digestive, urinary, and reproductive system anatomy. Faculty experience at LAGCC may serve as a resource to other academic institutions developing new curricula for large, on‐going courses. Anat Sci Educ. 7: 38–46. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

发展性阅读障碍的脑机制研究

阅读障碍是指词汇加工能力受损;而发展性阅读障碍是个体成长中出现的阅读障碍。一般从认知角度和生理基础角度出发研究阅读障碍的成因。通过对生理基础取向研究的回顾我们发现,发展性阅读障碍者阅读过程中的障碍存在脑部机能缺陷,主要包括脑电异常和脑功能异常。未来的研究应更加关注阅读障碍的定义,使之明确化;研究方法和手段要多元化;要开展多学科合作研究。     

Survey of Gross Anatomy Education in China: The Past and the Present

Medical education in mainland China has undergone massive expansion and reforms in the past decades. A nation-wide survey of the five-year clinical medicine programs aimed to examine the course hours, pedagogies, learning resources and teaching staff of anatomy both at present and over the past three decades (1990–1999, 2000–2009, and 2010–2018). The directors or senior teachers from 90 out of the 130 five-year clinical medicine programs were invited to fill out a factual questionnaire by email. Ultimately, sixty-five completed questionnaires were received from 65 different schools. It was found that the total number of gross anatomy course hours has decreased by 11% in the past 30 years and that systematic and regional anatomy have been increasingly taught separately among the surveyed medical schools. Problem-based learning has been adopted in thirty-five (54%) of the surveyed schools, and team-based learning is used in ten (15%) of the surveyed schools. The surveyed schools reported receiving more donated cadavers in recent years, with the average number increasing from 20.67 ± 20.29 in 2000–2009 to 36.10 ± 47.26 in 2010–2018. However, this has not resulted in a decrease in the number of students who needed to share one cadaver (11.85 ± 5.03 in 1990–1999 to 14.22 ± 5.0 in 2010–2018). A decreasing trend regarding the teacher-student ratio (1:25.5 in 2000–2009 to 1:33.2 in 2010–2018) was also reported. The survey demonstrated the historical changes in gross anatomy education in China over the past thirty years.     

“神经神话”的成因分析

神经神话是广泛流传的观念,它来源于神经科学的研究,但是在演化的过程中偏离了神经科学的原始研究,在神经科学以外的领域中传播与稳定下来。本文从脑科学的原始研究以及对脑科学研究成果的错误理解与解释推论的角度分析了教育文献中存在的神经神话及其成因。