RE: [HAPS-L] nervous and endocrine earlier in the semester, revisited

[Judith Gibber <jrg43@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There are several questions here:

1. Do students who learn material in a certain order do better in their 
subsequent career? I'm sure Ken's right, that this probably hasn't been 
studied in any prospective way.  It would be easier to do a retrospective 
study: Divide a group of health professionals into two subgroups based on 
the success of their clinical careers, and then ask them all to indicate 
the sequence of topics in their A&P course.  I'm quite certain that both 
groups will give the identical response, namely, "Huh?"

2. Are there faculty who teach the nervous and endocrine early in A&P and 
find that students do well?  The answer seems to be Yes.  Search the 
listserv archives for "sequence" and you'll find the wide range of views 
on this.  Here are some people who've taught this way: 
http://daphne.palomar.edu/ccarpenter/HAPSList/HAPP-L.2000.3/msg00681.html

3. Do students learn well when their profs are required to teach in ways 
that they (the profs) don't want to? Probably not.  In other words, I 
think it makes no difference what order you teach in, but it's important 
that faculty buy into it.


By the way, I think that the arguments for either sequence come from one's 
own background, either A or P. A&P was originally taught as A, starting 
with structure (bones & muscles), and then adding more and more function 
as more physiological processes were discovered.  So the traditional 
sequence makes most sense for those with a strong anatomy background. But 
P courses today often start with the nervous and endocrine systems, so 
those teaching A&P with more of a P background see this as a more logical 
way to go.

Judy

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