An education that pierces what the knife cannot: A student perspective

If personalized medicine is the way of the future, and the physician's approach to each patient becomes more individualized and team‐based, so must the professors' approach to the medical student experience. Mayo Medical School has an innovative curriculum designed to respect and enhance the individual interests of its students. A former educator herself, and now a medical student, the author advocates for further creative curriculum design to enhance healthy student attitude learning in medical school. In her personal testimony to the healing power of art and story, she cautions institutions that ignore integrating humanities into their curriculum that their student physicians will build self‐protective barriers without self‐reflection. She argues students must have more avenues to express their emotions during difficult transitions and ethical dilemmas. This commentary describes extracurricular student projects during anatomy, and includes an example of student reflective writing in anatomy. The author suggests that narrative medicine as an emerging discipline would be an effective educational strategy when applied to any aspect of the medical curriculum, and should be considered by more medical schools for further progress in medical education. Anat Sci Educ, 2010. © 2010 American Association of Anatomists.     

Anatomizing reversed: Use of examination questions that foster use of higher order learning skills by students

Anatomizing is a new verb some use to describe the breaking apart of a complex entity such as the human body, into isolated tidbits of information for study, which can never equal the complex, integrated whole. Although popular with first-year medical students, this practice of tidbitting anatomical information into easy to memorize facts or tables of facts does not prepare medical students for the inevitable task of dealing with the integrated structure-function of the human body, both normal and diseased, as patient managers. Examination questions drive the cognitive methods students will use to learn content. Asking students on examinations for recall of previously memorized tidbits fosters the cognitive learning behavior of only memorization. Examination questions, however, can be constructed that assess student understanding and integration of the content, that is, student use of cognitive and metacognitive methods of higher order learning that will foster high-quality learning producing better practitioners and lifelong learners. This kind of efficient student learning needs to begin in the first year of medical school.Learning more efficiently and at deeper levels of understanding is especially pertinent as the contact hours in anatomy courses continue to decrease.     

Does service learning affect the development of intercultural sensitivity? A study comparing students’ progress in two different methodologies

Numerous studies have highlighted Intercultural Sensitivity (IS) as a key competence in an increasingly multicultural society. This study examined the extent to which a cohort of first year undergraduate students enrolled on the same Didactics course, and in two different training modalities – Service Learning (SL) and non-Service Learning (non-SL) – developed IS. It was based on a quasi-experimental design of repeated pre-test and post-test measures, comparing the two groups. The sample consisted of 233 Spanish students at higher education institutions, and data was collected using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). The SL group displayed significantly higher levels of IS in all factors except in the denial/defence and minimization stages. Results indicated the effectiveness of SL regarding specific subscales within the IDI instrument. The findings add new depth to our understanding regarding which teaching methodologies contribute to the development of IS and to the training of active citizens in Spanish university students. The discussion focuses on the need for intercultural service experiences to promote IS. The results have broad implications for policymakers and educators who are interested in enhancing transformative educational experiences and effective teaching methodologies for developing students’ IS in higher education.     

Developing intercultural communicative competence in foreign language classrooms – A study of EFL learners in Taiwan

Internationalisation has accentuated the importance of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) among language learners in higher education in the 21st century. As in the case of Taiwan, universities worldwide have begun to emphasise intercultural ‘literacy’ in language classrooms. Following Byram’ (1997) ICC model, this study adopts an intercultural approach to language classroom in order to investigate the effectiveness of explicit instruction in developing ICC among EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners in Taiwan, and to discover how this development is related to the background factors of overseas experience and English proficiency. The accompanying research therefore has two purposes: (1) to evaluate the effectiveness of explicit instruction on EFL learners’ development of ICC by employing both self-assessment and other assessment tools and (2) to investigate the relationship between the development of ICC and two background factors. The results show that (1) explicit instruction is effective in raising students’ development of ICC, especially the knowledge and skills dimensions, and (2) English proficiency and overseas experience are significantly related to better acquisition of ICC.     

普通高中研究性学习的规范化研究

为了使研究性学习课程的有效实施,必须对研究性学习流程中的师生活动进行规范化研究。这些研究涉及教师的专业培训、制定校课程实施规划、设计《学生手册》、培训学生及研究性学习前期、中期、后期的组织与指导。     

字形分析法在文言实词教学中的运用

传统文言实词的教学从某种程度上来说就是对课下注释的强调,陈旧的课堂教学模式导致学生缺失调遣运用文言知识的能力。造成这一现象的主要原因,是学生对这些字词知其然而不知其所以然。因此,我们要改变目前文言字词的教学面貌。教师应适当借助字形分析法,让汉字自己说话,从而激活学生的求知欲。同时,改变教学模式,让学生在成熟的信息技术环境下,自主探究,并通过研究性学习构建知识体系。     

非英语专业大学生的课下自主听说现状分析

自主学习是以学生为中心的大学英语教学改革的重要课题。非英语专业大学生到底如何进行英语听说方面的自主学习？本文就这一问题进行问誊调查、定量研究,对调查所得的第一手数据资料加以统计、整理、总结、归纳并分析,提炼出被大学生普遍采用的英语听说自主的模式,为广大师生更加有效的教与学提供参考和借鉴。     

运动疲劳对大鼠海马CAI 区神经元电活动的影响

目的：通过神经电生理学的方法,揭示运动性中枢疲劳的神经生物学机制。方法：30只健康雄性sD大鼠,随机分为安静对照组（CG）、有氧运动组（AG）和运动疲劳组（FG）。采用微电极技术在体观察运动训练后大鼠海马CAI区神经元自发及诱发电活动的变化规律,并通过被动回避行为条件反射的方法观察大鼠的学习记忆能力。结果：FG组大鼠海马神经元的自发和诱发电活动均显著低于CG组和AG组（P〈0.05）。FG组学习记忆能力显著低于CG和AG（P〈0.05,P〈0.01）。结论：运动疲劳可抑制大鼠海马神经元的兴奋性,并降低其学习记忆能力。提示：海马神经元自发放电频率与学习记忆能力有密切关系,运动疲劳导致海马神经元电活动的变化可能是其学习记忆能力降低的机制之一。     

健康第一、终身体育、素质教育与体育教学

分析了健康第一、终身体育、素质教育的产生、发展及其对体育教学的影响。健康第一、终身体育与现代教育学理论是位于同一层次上的关系,素质教育与健康第一、终身体育、现代教育学理论是属于包容与被包容的关系。研究指出,健康第一、终身教育是体育教学实施素质教育的根本指导思想。     

综合实践活动课程中体育内容的学习领域

综合实践活动课程的内容要面向学生的生活、面向实际、面向社会。加强时综合实践活动课程中体育内容的领域框架建构的研究,不仅能在活动领域方面充分体现“综合”的特征,而且更能体现综合实践活动课程中体育内容的价值,对实施综合实践活动课程更具有积极的意义。