Pre-A&P: A Refresher for Student Success in Anatomy & Physiology | TAPP 140 - The A&P Professor

Episode Transcript
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>>Kevin Patton: The late tennis champion and activist Arthur (00:00):
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Ashe once said, "One important key to successis self-confidence.
An important key to self-confidence is preparation."

>>Aileen Park: Welcome to The A&P Professor, a few minutes (00:15):
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to focus on teaching human anatomy and physiologywith a veteran educator and teaching mentor,
your host, Kevin Patton.

>>Kevin Patton: In episode 140, I describe my Pre-A&P refresher (00:28):
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course.

(00:49):
In this episode I want to talk with you aboutmy Pre-A&P course, but really there are two
courses I want to talk with you about.
One of them is Pre-A&P, and the other oneI call the A&P 1 Supplement course.
And I've already mentioned these two coursesbriefly in past episodes, but only in bits

(01:12):
and pieces.
And even if you take all those bits and piecesand put them all together, it's not really
the whole story.
And I want to tell you the whole story, atleast an overview of the whole story.
So that's what I'm going to do in this episodeand in the next episode.
In this episode, I'll focus on the Pre-A&Pcourse.

(01:33):
In the next episode, I'll focus on the A&P1 Supplement course.
And before I get into either one of those,I want to give a little background into why
I developed these courses and offered themto our students.
It all lies in the fact that I think thatthere are a couple of things missing in our
A&P students that stand in the way of theirsuccess.

(01:57):
And to get at what those missing things are,I threw out some questions at a workshop I
did years ago when I first developed these.
Let me tell you what those questions were.
And this was just to get the discussion goingand set the scene for these courses.
So the first question to the group was, forthem to discuss among themselves in small

(02:19):
groups was, it's easy to teach my studentswhat they need to know about A&P in one or
two semesters.
True or false?
Well, there was an immediate buzz in the roombecause people wanted to talk about that one.
A lot of people, including me, don't feellike a one semester or a two semester A&P

(02:44):
course is really enough time.
It really doesn't allow us to cover what Iwant to cover, and I think most of us feel
that way.
So whether it's actually true or false isbeside the point.
It feels like it's false, doesn't it?
Doesn't it feel like we just never have enoughtime?

(03:05):
If I just had a few more weeks, if I had threesemesters instead of two, if I had two semesters
instead of one, if I had four semesters insteadof three, whatever it is, we want more, right?
We want more time.
Another question I asked was, my studentsare well-prepared to take my A&P course.
True or false?

(03:26):
Well, a lot of excited discussion about thatone too, because a lot of us feel that even
in circumstances where there's a lot of screeningof students in general maybe at our school,
and maybe there's some really solid prerequisitesto get into A&P, even so there are at least
some students who don't seem to be very well-preparedto take that A&P course, and it stands in

(03:52):
their way, at least a little bit of them beingas successful as they'd like to be.
And then the third discussion item I threwout to the group to discuss among themselves
was this one, my students possess excellentlearning skills.
True or false?
Well, you know what, there are some studentsthat have excellent learning skills, but even

(04:15):
those students I've found when they get toA&P, they have challenges.
Because even if they've developed good learningskills in high school, in their first year
in college, when they hit A&P, it's usuallytheir first very rigorous course, at least
rigorous in the way that A&P can be rigorous.

(04:35):
And they get overwhelmed and they find thatthose learning skills, they need improvement.
And then of course there's that whole batchof students that have hardly any learning
skills.
And so they're way far behind and they reallyneed a lot of help.
And you know what?
Sadly a lot of them just give up and changemajors even or do something else.

(05:00):
They leave the course and they may or maynot ever come back.
And that's sad when that happens.
So what can we do about these things thatwe all seem to run into in one way or another
in our courses among at least some of ourstudents?
Well, that's where we come into these twothings that I think are missing.

(05:20):
First one is subject preparation.
When our students come in, they really don'thave some of the basic science that we'd like
them to have, no matter what prerequisiteswe force them into, what hoops we made them
jump through, when they actually walk in thedoor, do they really know all that basic science?

(05:41):
Do they have a grasp of some of the basicchemistry principles that they need to really
have ready to go when they start our course?
What about basic cell biology?
Yeah, they recognize the name of a mitochondrionand know it's the powerhouse of the cell,
but do they know what that really means?

(06:02):
How that plays out in the story of the celland of the whole human body?
Not necessarily.
Even if they did well in those earlier courses.
And what about metabolism?
Do they have any real grasp of what metabolismis or why we need to understand the general
principles of metabolism?
And what about body organization?

(06:22):
I know a lot of us start our course with bodyorganization, but wouldn't it be great to
have a group of students that really alreadyknew the basics of that, had a conceptual
framework on which we can build quickly andthen move on?
In genetics, what about some basic ideas ofwhat a gene is and how it works and why it's

(06:44):
important in the cell and in the body?
What's going on with protein synthesis andusing that information from the genes?
Well, there's all these basic science ideasthat we often end up having to review with
students, or at least the students are goingto have to review that again before they can

(07:04):
begin to understand what we're talking about.
And it really slows them down because theyhit our course and they're already flailing
around because they realize that they don'tremember all this stuff, and then they have
to go back and review, and then they jumpback into it.
And now they've been put behind a little bit.
They really weren't as ready as they neededto be to start.

(07:25):
So what can we do to fix that?
So that's number one.
Number two thing that may be missing in ourA&P students, at least some of them, are learning
skills.
Things like reading comprehension.
And what I mean by that is how to read a sciencetextbook at a college level, how to read other

(07:47):
resources that we present to our studentsor make available to them, and how to really
comprehend what's going on there, not justskim over and say, oh, yeah, that was about
something, but I don't know what, and I don'tknow why this is important and why they wanted
us to read this.
And what about listening and note-taking skills?

(08:08):
Whether it's a lecture or a discussion oran active learning project.
Are students really taking effective notes?
Are they really listening for what's important,or are they just listening or trying to listen?
What about memorization skills?
And I know we don't like to talk about memorization.
I don't know why that has become a bad wordreally.

(08:30):
I guess if that's all we ask our studentsto do is memorize things, then that would
be bad, I guess.
But of course we don't do just that.
But memorization is an important skill inan A&P course.
If you can't memorize things, you're goingto really, really struggle in an A&P course.
So what about those skills and what aboutacquiring and using a new vocabulary?

(08:52):
It's like learning a new language, that requiressome learning skills that our students may
not really have built up the way they neededto.
And what about skills needed for active studyingand practice?
How many of our A&P students think that studyor revision for A&P means staring at their
book or staring at their notes and rereadingtheir notes and underlining their notes and

(09:17):
highlighting their book, and oh, that's notvery active at all.
They need to do some active things like practice.
They need to practice that information, andso they need to build up those skills.
What about problem solving skills?
When we ask them to solve problems on ourtests or in case studies or other kinds of

(09:39):
problems that we present them with, even justin discussions in the class, do they really
know how to solve problems?
Do they know how to lay out the problem tosee what do they know?
What is it they need to find?
Do they know the steps they need to take inorder to find the answer to that problem once
they've framed to the problem?
There's a lot of skills involved in problemsolving, and they may not have learned all

(10:02):
of them or at least practiced them.
And what about test taking skills?
Yeah, they've taken some tests and they'vebeen successful, otherwise they wouldn't be
there in college with you.
But oh man, when they get to the A&P test,there's a lot there that they need to be able
to demonstrate that they know sometimes ata very deep level, sometimes in involving

(10:25):
some creative thinking.
And not only that, but just when things dogo wrong to analyze, well, what's going wrong
and how do I get back on track?
So there are some really high level test takingskills that they may not have learned yet.
So two big groups of obstacles that potentiallyface our students, and that is, number one,

(10:49):
subject preparation.
Number two, learning skills.
And number three, maturity.
Okay, we're going to focus on that first one,subject preparation in this episode.
The second one, learning skills, we'll focuson that in the next episode.
And the third one, maturity, well, I'm notsure what we can do with that one.

(11:14):
So we're not going to do that.
Now, before we get into the real nitty-grittyin a detailed description of my Pre-A&P course
in this episode, let me just give you a reallyquick overview and then we'll come back to
each of these points and fill in the blanks.
It's a self-paced, fully online refreshercourse.

(11:36):
I keep reminding my students that.
What we're doing here is a refresher.
This is stuff that hopefully you learned beforeand we're just trying to pull it back out
of our brains and work with it so that we'reready to go once we start A&P.
So it's a refresher course.
Now, of course, there's always the case thatsome of the things that we had hoped they

(12:02):
had learned, they just never saw that before,or it's just completely gone from their memory.
So they're going to be gaps to fill in.
So we're not just refreshing what we can pullback out of our memories in this course, but
we're also filling in any gaps that mightexist there.
And we don't care how those gaps got there.
We just want to make sure they're filled in.

(12:23):
When I first start teaching this course, wecalled it Foundations in Science for Health
Careers.
Later on, we added the Pre-A&P to the titleof it.

So it's Pre A&P (12:34):
Foundations in Science for Health Careers, but we really just call it
Pre-A&P because that's shorter.
And Foundations in Science for Health careers,a lot of people just don't know what that
means.
I'm not sure if I know completely what thatmeans, but Pre-A&P, we know it's well what
you need to do before you start A&P, right?

(12:55):
Just a quick little history here.
Decades ago, I don't know, it was probablya little over 30 years ago, at our college,
I was asked to develop a face-to-face course.
We didn't have online courses back then, sothey didn't ask me to develop a face-to-face
course.
They asked me to develop a course, and ofcourse it was going to be face-to-face because

(13:17):
that's what we did.
And the idea of them asking came from a planthey were developing to develop what they
were calling a success semester in the collegewhere they wanted to have students who struggled
take this success semester where they wouldlearn what they need to learn in order to

(13:38):
do well right away, do well right out of thegate.
So that included some of the traditional developmentalcourses like some developmental math and developmental
English, but they wanted to expand beyondthat, and they wanted people in every discipline
to offer some success courses, some developmentallevel courses, even in disciplines that traditionally

(14:00):
don't offer developmental level courses.
And because a lot of our students were takingA&P and a lot of our students were struggling
in A&P, they asked us to develop this foundationalcourse to take before they went into A&P,
so that students could catch up before theygo into A&P.
Our department embraced that because we hadalready been dealing with this issue of students

(14:27):
that had aged out of their prerequisite, rememberhigh school biology or it's equivalent within
the last five years.
Well, what if they're in year five and a half?
So they're going to probably balk at that.
What?
I have to start A&P next semester becauseI'm only a few months past that arbitrary

(14:49):
time limit?
And yeah, what's magical about five years?
I don't know.
And the other thing is that, well, we hadsome experience with students that, well,
okay, I'll take human biology, which we wouldconsider an equivalent to high school biology,
or I'll take general biology, which we consideran equivalent.

(15:10):
So they could take that at our school.
And some of those students, actually quitea few of those students were sitting in general
bio thinking, I know all this stuff.
And they were just flying through it and reallyresenting the fact that they had to stop and
do this for a semester when they already knewit.
All they really needed was a quick refresher.
They didn't really need the full-blown courseagain.

(15:33):
And we toyed around with trying to test outthe prerequisite where we would give them
a test and then they would try to pass thattest.
And if they passed the test, then that wouldcount for the prerequisite and they could
move on.
And that just didn't work very well.
And I can see why, because they didn't knowhow to prepare for the test, and they take

(15:56):
the test and you're just hit with all of thisstuff within an hour or two's time, you need
to recall lots of details and apply thosedetails.
That just doesn't work too good.
So not very many people pass the test.
So that wasn't really solving the problemthat these students were running into.

(16:18):
This course, it fit the bill that it was somethingthat students could take this very brief course.
It only was equivalent of one credit hour.
It's not really a credit toward graduationbecause it's developmental level or remedial
level course, but they could be taking otherstuff.

(16:38):
They wouldn't have to use up part of theirbig chunk of their schedule for this course,
and it could be refreshed.
We offered it in this face-to-face course,and it worked pretty well.
What I didn't like about it was that everybodywas at a different place.
Some people really knew their cell stuff,but needed some work on chemistry.

(16:58):
Some of them knew the chemistry and cell stuff,but needed some work on genetics.
Some of them knew the genetics part, but didn'tknow anything about metabolism.
So they were all in different places, andyet I'm trying to teach them as all one big
group, and it just evolved into a one roomschoolhouse type thing where we were trying

(17:19):
to work with different people on differentthings, and it's just hard to do in a college
classroom, I think, especially if you havea packed room, which I often did.
We were trying to figure out what to do.
One of the other objectives in this studentsuccess program was to build confidence in

(17:42):
the students so that they could get all thosebasics refreshed in these various courses
they were taking during their success semester.
And then they would walk into the full-blowncollege courses with a lot more confidence.
And we know that that confidence a lot oftimes is really a big part of how successful
they're going to be.

(18:03):
So that's how it started, and it worked okay.
But I eventually stopped teaching that class,and part of it was it wasn't doing exactly
what I thought it should be doing, and I reallydidn't take the time to figure out how we
could fix it.
I didn't exactly walk away from it completely.

(18:23):
It still stayed there in the back of my mind,but I had a lot of other projects I had to
tend to, so I stopped teaching it.
And when I stopped teaching it, nobody elsewanted to do it.
Nobody else was interested in it, so it justdied.
Okay, so that's the background of it.
Then a few years later, after thinking aboutit a lot, and after online courses started

(18:46):
to become a thing, it was still the earlydays of online courses, but that gave me some
ideas about how can we do this one room schoolhousetype thing where different people would be
at different places and have different gapsin their knowledge and need to work on different
things in order to be 100% refreshed on thesebasic ideas.

(19:08):
And so I resurrected it again, but this timeas a completely online course.
So that was just about two decades ago thatI revived it and retooled it and renamed it
by adding that Pre-A&P to the name of thecourse.
And it was once again, a developmental orremedial level course, so it's not for graduation

(19:32):
credit, but it was the equivalent of a one-hourcourse.
It's a pass-fail course.
Now at that time that I reintroduced it, andalso that previous version of it, a C or better,
which was 70% or better, was a passing grade.
Well, in this one I redid the grading.

(19:55):
So it's what you might want to call an alternativegrading thing, and I'll get into the details
of that a little bit later.
But their tests are scored and they neededto achieve at least an 85% success rate on
any one test.
So that's the equivalent of a B or better,in order to pass that test and pass the course.

(20:19):
So when we say pass-fail, a lot of us thinkin the back of our heads, immediately go to,
oh, you either get a failing grade or youget an A, B, C, or D, and that's just lumped
into passing.
Well, that's not the case here.
In the case of this course B are better ispassing, anything lower than a B is not passing.

(20:39):
Now, that's as a general principle.
As I say, it's an alternative grading scenario,and you'll get that as we go through this.
We also offered it only in the short terms,we often call them mini masters.
And so instead of our usual 15 or 16 weeksemester or trimester, we would pack in these

(21:02):
various half semester sessions and pre-semestersessions and summer sessions, long and short
summer sessions.
So they ranged, sometimes they were offeredin a one-week session, sometimes a two-week
session, sometimes a four-week session, sometimesa five-week session, sometimes an eight-week
session.

(21:22):
But they were all short.
They were all shorter than the 15 or 16 weektraditional semester or trimester that we
normally think of.
And this did count as the A&P prerequisite.
For those who had expired prerequisites theycould take this course and if they pass it,

(21:43):
now on their transcript that would get theminto A&P one, that would meet the requirements
for that prerequisite.
The students were advised by our advisorsthat they should not take the course if they
don't have any science background.
They need a science course if they want todo that, they need to take human bio or general
bio or some equivalent of those courses.

(22:05):
But if they had that and they either justwanted to refresh it, maybe they had it the
semester before and they just wanted to boosttheir confidence and refresh it again, or
maybe it had been a little more than fiveyears, but they felt like they could get it
back pretty quick, well then those are thefolks that were counseled to take this course.

(22:28):
Okay, so in the next segment, we're goingto jump into the course design.
Now, my Pre-A&P course has 10 modules in it,and each of those modules focuses on one category
of concepts that I think students need tohave a good handle on, need to have good familiarity

(22:53):
with, and even competence in, in order tohit their A&P course with a good chance of
success.
So what are those concepts?
Let me list them for you so that they're beenin the back of your mind as we go through
the rest of the discussion in this episode.
So there were 10 of them, 10 modules.

(23:14):
First one covered science basics.
So this is scientific measurement, graphsand charts and illustrations and how to use
them, science terminology, things like that.
So very basic things in science.
Number two was introductory chemistry.
So some of the basic chemical principles suchas atoms and molecules and ions and ionic

(23:40):
bonding and covalent bonding and polar andnon-polar and some acids and bases.
Those are very basic chemistry principles.
And then the third module covered biologicalchemistry.
So these are the macromolecules, what thecategories are, what the components of each
of those are, what the functions of them are.

(24:02):
Then we get to the fourth one that's introductionto cells, so very basic cell structure and
function.
And then we get to number five, and that'scell transport, so things like diffusion and
osmosis and bulk transport such as exocytosisand pinocytosis and phagocytosis, and so on.

(24:25):
And we get to the 6th one, and that's gettingenergy.
So this is where we start to dive into metabolism,at least just in a general sense, what is
anabolism?
What is catabolism?
Why do we need to know about the catabolicpathways?
Why is that important to our understandingof the human body and how it functions?

(24:47):
So that's getting energy.
And then we move into the anabolic part inthe 7th module, which is called making proteins.
I could have called that protein synthesis,but that sounds scary.
So making proteins, that's all it is.
So how do we make proteins?
How do we take that genetic information andstart building our amino acids up into peptides

(25:10):
and polypeptides and inform our final versionof our protein and what's going on with those
proteins?
And then we get to module eight, which isintroductory genetics.
So just some very basic genetic principles.
And then number nine is tissues.
So this is an introduction to tissue, notall of the detail that we often cover in an

(25:31):
A&P course, but just some general categoriesof tissues, so that they have an idea of what
an epithelial tissue is, what a connectivetissue is, and a few examples of each one
of those, but not like I say all the detailwe get to in A&P course, but just a foundational
level.
And then the 10th and final module is thehuman body.

(25:53):
So this is where we introduce students tothe idea of directional terms and a few of
the directional terms, the different regionsof the body, and some of those basic principles,
so that when the students get an A&P, it'snot just this big dump truck full of stuff
that's unloaded on top of their head the firstweek, and they're expected to know all of

(26:15):
it and be comfortable with it and be ableto use it and apply it.
So this is their first go at it.
So those are our 10 modules.
Gives you an idea of the kinds of topics thatwe cover in Pre-A&P.
And if you want to look at more detail, youcan skim the learning outcomes of the course
using the link that I'm providing you in theepisode notes for this episode.

(26:35):
So in these 10 modules, what do the studentsdo?
Well, the main thing they do is the moduletest, because remember, this is a testing
out experience to take the place of an actualtesting out experience that we tried and it
didn't work too good.
That's why the test has become the centralpart of each of the modules.

(26:57):
And give me some time here and I'll fill thatin for you.
What I mean by test how the tests work andwhat else they do or can do besides the tests,
not instead of the test, but besides the testthat is alongside the test.
A couple of basic things.
All the module tests are cumulative tests.
So when they take test one, it covers theconcepts of module one, which is basic sciences.

(27:23):
Then when they get to test two on introductorychemistry, they're going to get a lot of items
about introductory chemistry, but they'realso going to get a few items about the basic
science, because it's cumulative.
And then when they get to test three, they'regoing to have a few questions, and they're
from both tests one and two.
And then in module four, they're going toget some questions in there from test one,

(27:45):
two, and three.
So it accumulates as they keep going.
And then finally when they're done with module10 tests, they're ready for the final exam,
because they've been practicing on the otherconcepts by the time they get there.
And so they do have a cumulative final exam,and as I say, they're usually very ready for

(28:06):
it, and they go into it and they take thatand if they pass the final exam with a B or
better, then they pass the course.
So they have to pass each test in sequencewith 85% or better, and they have to do it
in sequence and they have to pass each one,because when they get 85% that unlocks the

(28:28):
next module.
They can't take test two until they pass testone, and they can't take test three until
they pass test one and then test two.
They can't just skip one, say, well, I'lljust take an F on that and hope it averages
out.
Okay, nope, because the test points are notaveraged and they're not totaled.

(28:50):
If you get to the final exam and pass it,you pass the course.
If you don't get there or if you get thereand you don't pass the final exam, you don't
pass the course.
And that's different and weird.
Right?
Each of the tests is composed of randomizedquestions, these are all objective questions

(29:11):
and they're in groups.
For item one there might be a group of fiveor 10 or 15 or 20 different questions, and
the learning management system will randomizethat.
And so on the attempt that you're taking atthe moment, it'll choose one of those 20 items.

(29:32):
And then the next time you take that test,if you take it again, on that second attempt,
it'll again randomly pick one.
There's a one in 20 chance that it'll be thesame question, but odds are it's going to
be a different question on that same subtopic,that same small group of concepts.
And that's just like how we build tests.

(29:53):
We don't test on every little thing, we randomlyselect from this concept and that concept
and so on.
So yeah, it's just like a regular test, exceptit's different every time.
Because of that randomization, if you do themath on it, you see the odds of them getting
two of the same tests is practically impossible.

(30:15):
You're going to win Powerball before you getanother version of the test that's identical
to a previous version that you've taken.
So each of those attempts is a different test.
I'm going to come back to the tests and howthey work and how really weird they are, in

(30:37):
a moment.
But let's stop and fill out the idea of whata learning module is first.
So yeah, the test is part of the learningmodule, and if you pass the test for that
learning module, you've passed the moduleand that's what you need to do to unlock the
next module.
So we know that.
So what I tell students to do is to startthe module by taking the test first.

(31:02):
Now, if they want to do some reviewing aheadof time or reading or something like that,
they can do that.
I don't stop them from doing that.
I just say a good strategy is to take thetest first.
Besides the idea that pre-tests are a goodidea in a regular course anyway, that is taking
a test on the topic before you start studyingthe topic.

(31:25):
And that's been shown, and I've talked aboutthat in previous episodes, that has been shown
to be of an effective learning technique.
There's that, but setting that aside, thisis a refresher course.
So maybe a particular module, the topics ofa particular module, maybe it's already strong

(31:46):
in this one, maybe this student really doesn'tneed to go back and review because they know
about this topic.
They know these concepts pretty well already.
You tell a student, how can you determinewhether this is strong in you or not right
away?
Well, you can do it right away by taking thetest.

(32:08):
If you pass the test, those concepts are strongin you.
Yay.
And now you can move forward in your quest.
No sense slaying a monster that's alreadydead, right?
So good test at the beginning to see is therea gap there or not?
Do we need refreshing for this set of concepts?
No, we don't.

(32:29):
Well, we can move on to the next one becausewe passed this test and that has unlocked
the next module.
But if a student doesn't pass, well, theycan't get to the next module.
They have no choice but to stay there.
And now we've identified some weaknesses.
Now we know here's a spot where we need towork on it.
I provide them some resources and they canuse any resources they want, but I provide

(32:53):
them with a few to at least get them started,and usually it's enough for them.
So one thing I provide is a review outlinethat just goes through the main ideas, the
main concepts that are in that module andwhat those concepts are about.
And that includes some illustrations too,sometimes even little animations or a link

(33:16):
to a video or something like that.
But it's basically just an outline.
So they can use that and review things, andif they feel like, well, yeah, this reminded
me of some stuff, I think I got it now.
They can take another attempt.
And if they don't pass, hey, no harm, no foul,they can continue to take attempts.
They have unlimited attempts.

(33:36):
All they need to do is get to 85% or better.
And once they hit that, that unlocks the nextone.
That's all they need to be able to do.
Maybe they'll go back a few times and reviewthe outline and take a few attempts.
Another thing that I provide them are audiosummaries.
Now, not all the details are in the audiosummaries, but it gives them a little story

(33:58):
about that topic for that module or that setof topics for that module.
And sometimes that jars some memories, loosenand that gets them along.
But I have links to other more detailed resources.
If they want to read a textbook, well, I havean A&P textbook on reserve in the library,
or they can just go online and I give themlinks to some open biology and A&P textbooks,

(34:23):
and they can go in there and review thosetopics in some detail.
I also link to the Kahn Academy biology units,and they can go in and watch some of those
videos and get caught up on those areas whereI don't remember about osmosis, I need to
look at some osmosis videos and have somebodyexplain to me what osmosis is.

(34:47):
So they can do that.
Wendy Riggs has a great collection of instructionalvideos in biology and A&P.
And so I have a link to her YouTube site whereshe has those videos.
There's many other resources I could offer,but I found that if I offered too many, then
they just glance at that long list and say,I don't even know where to start there, so

(35:08):
I'm not going to do anything.
So I just give them a small handful.
And they're really good resources, so theyusually don't have to go beyond that.
So they can use any of those resources.
And some students, they really feel like they'renot studying and unless they read the book,
so yeah, okay, you want to read a book, there'sa book you can read and that'll hopefully

(35:30):
help refresh you.
And that's what we're doing here, right?
It's a refresher course.
And so hopefully that'll get you over thathump and you get your 85% and I can move to
the next module.
They take the test again and again, each timeI encourage them to review it, I actually
give them some specific instructions on howto analyze that test attempt that they just

(35:54):
took and figure out what went wrong.
I give them steps to go through to do that.
So they're learning a good skill there ifthey don't already know how to do that, and
figure out what went wrong, figure out howto get to where they need to be, and then
they can take another attempt.
If they mess that one up, well, let's analyzethat one and see what went wrong and where

(36:14):
my weak spots are again.
And so they can do that again and again andagain and again until that test gets passed
and that next module is unlocked.
Now, sometimes that can be daunting if they'rereally struggling with a particular set of
topics.
It usually isn't daunting, but it can be.

(36:35):
And having taught this for almost 20 years,I can tell you, most students find that the
first couple of tests are easy.
The first couple of modules, they can getthrough them pretty quickly, and so they think,
oh, they're all going to go this quickly,but no, no, things get harder as things move
along.
That's how life works too.
And so when they get to the third and fourthtest, they get a little discouraged sometimes

(37:02):
because now they have a few more attemptsbefore they get going, and this is the point
at which some of them are going to contactme directly and privately and say, Kevin,
I don't understand what's going wrong.
I did so well on the first two, but this thirdone is hard.
Or the first three were okay.
Third one I struggled with a little bit, butman, test four, it's just, I don't think I'll

(37:26):
ever pass it.
I've taken too many attempts.
And I say, well, how many is too many?
You can take as many as you like, so justkeep on taking that test.
And so here's where I'm really, besides settingup the whole thing, here's another place where
I'm really necessary, makes me feel good thatI'm needed, because I need to get in there

(37:47):
and really encourage that student and reallylet them know that it's okay.
This does not mean you're failing.
This means you're learning.
You can't learn without effort.
So we've identified an area where you needto do some learning or relearning, and to
do that relearning, you need to put in moreeffort on this set of topics, and it'll probably

(38:12):
get better in later modules where you're goingto run into some more things that you remember.
But for now, yep, we have a challenge.
So I'll be here right with you.
If there's anything you can't figure out,I'll help you figure it out.
I'm not going to just give them answers, butI'm going to help them figure it out.
And that's what I do as an instructor, right?
That's what faculty members do.

(38:33):
That's why I enjoy teaching.
Once I get past test four, usually I don'tget a lot of that kind of feedback anymore.
Maybe a little bit, but not too much.
Now after test four, the rest of them aren'teasy.
But I think by then the students have figuredout that they can rise to challenges, that
they can push through and get this done.

(38:55):
And boy, that's a big thing in my book.
If they've learned nothing else, they've learnedno concepts at all, but learned that lesson,
to me it's totally worth it.
They have this pathway that they go through.
In the syllabus I walk them through it.
I walk them through how it works, that youtake a test, if you don't pass it, you circle

(39:16):
back and fill in the blanks, and then youtake another attempt, and if you don't pass
it, you circle back and keep going, and thenyou can move forward if you pass the test.
So I label that the success pathway.
So I'm always referring to the success pathway,and I even have a diagram, a little flow chart
that walks them through that.
Here's what you do for module one.
You do the same thing for module two, samething for module three, and finally you get

(39:40):
to the end.
Okay.
In the next segment, I'm going to talk a littlebit more about these darn tests, these weird
tests.
As I said in the previous segment, this courseis really focused on those tests.
So are these formative tests?

(40:00):
That is test whose main goal is to teach astudent like quizzes in a traditional classically
designed course, quizzes act as formativetests where they really get the students thinking
and they show students where their weak spotsare.
And then it's a chapter test or module testor midterm exam or something, where it's the

(40:25):
summative test, where the students have doneall their learning by using the formative
tests and other learning techniques, and nowthey're ready for the summative test where
they're being assessed and given a final gradeor score.
So the question is, in this Pre-A&P course,are these formative tests?
Are they summative tests?

(40:47):
And the answer is yes.
It depends on where the students are in theirlearning.
So when they take a test attempt and theypass it, well, that's a summative test.
It showed that, yep, I have the competenceto handle a test on this set of topics.

(41:07):
But if they take the test and they don't pass,well, then it becomes formative.
It's a formative test, and we don't stickwith that grade.
So we didn't assess them and say, well, here'syour performance.
Like it or not, that's the end of the story,you have no recourse from now on unless you
take the course over again.
We don't do that.

(41:27):
We say, okay, you got some weak spots here,let's work on them.
And then they try it again, and it might beanother formative experience.
And they try it again, it might be anotherformative experience.
And then they try it again and whoa, theypassed it.
And so now, yep, we can say that you're goodenough now.
We can say that you are competent in thisset of concepts.

(41:49):
You did B or better.
And so we're saying that that's a level ofcompetence that's going to provide you some
success later on.
So the answer to that question, are they formativeor summative is, well, they're formative until
they become summative.
Another aspect of these tests is that I lookat them as a form of retrieval practice.

(42:12):
Now, the very first episode years ago in thispodcast was about retrieval practice and I've
brought it up a number of times since then.
And retrieval practice is a widely studiedand very well-documented and proven way to
learn things, to get things into your long-termmemory, and not only get them into your memory,

(42:34):
but be able to get them out when you needthem and get them out and apply them the way
you need to apply them.
So it's really a very rich activity whereyou're retrieving not just information, but
retrieving the ability to apply and use andbe creative and solve problems with those
memories.

(42:54):
And here's where we get a little controversial.
I call them retrieval practice, but thereare some cognitive scientists who are horrified
by that, which is a good reason for me tocontinue to call on that.
Because it's just, to me I think it's hilariousthat they get so upset about this.
Holy smoke, I didn't insult your mother orsomething, I just said that these tests are

(43:20):
a kind of retrieval practice.
No, tests are not retrieval practice and don'tsay they are, because that will scare students.
Well, really, is that a good reason to notcall them retrieval practice if that's really
what they're doing?
If they're formative tests until they becomesummative, well, okay, the summative test
isn't retrieval practice.
The practice is over and you made it.

(43:42):
But the formative attempts that you're taking,those are retrieval practice.
And yeah, I'm calling them a test.
I don't think that scares students.
I think that they actually feel better aboutthe fact that they can keep retaking tests.
To them that's a win.
Like, whoa, it is a great class, if I faila test, so what?
I can take it over again.

(44:02):
Now, of course, they soon realize that theydon't want to keep failing because they want
to get done with the course eventually, right?
It's retrieval practice, and if you want tocome and fight me, go ahead.
The other thing about these tests is, I justwant to reemphasize that they're very randomized.

(44:26):
And as time went on the first few years, especiallyless so in later years, but still continually,
I go back and I throw some test items out,because I've found based on student questions
and just how many students pass that itemand so on, that some of them are confusing.
So I either throw them away or rewrite them,and then I add a few more to the list.

(44:50):
So maybe the first time through there werefive items in that question set, and then
next time I add a couple more, now I haveseven, and then I add a couple more, and now
I have nine.
And before you know it I have 25 of them.
The more test items I write, the faster Ican write and the better the items are, the
more clear they are, the better they are atreally honing in on what it is I want to be

(45:15):
testing or evaluating in the students.
It sounds really hard, and I'll admit it'sa lot of work at the beginning, but it gets
faster, it gets better, and then you keepadding to it.
And the bigger those question sets get, theless likely it is that students are going
to get the same items again and again.

(45:39):
You don't really need very many in a questionset, but I don't know, I just am that way.
If I can add a few more here and there andfeel better about it, I'm going to do it even
though it's not really necessary, I'm goingto go ahead and do it.
So yeah, it's highly randomized and I thinkthat's an important aspect of this.

(46:00):
Otherwise, students are going to try and cheatthe system.
They're going to try and game the system andtry to collect those test answers and share
them with one another and create a database.
But it's really almost impossible to buildthat.
It's just a waste of time and effort.
It's the time and effort is much better spentstudying and working on the test and doing

(46:23):
more attempts at the test than trying to dothat sort of thing.
And in the 20 years I've been teaching thiscourse, that hasn't happened.
So yeah, I guess it works.
Keeping students honest and preserving theirintegrity whether they want to or not, and
they want to in this course, they realizeit's about them when it's a personalized course

(46:45):
like this.
Another thing about the way the tests workis because they're automatically scored by
the learning management system, they get immediatescoring and feedback on how they did.
And by feedback, what I mean is they are markedcorrect or incorrect, so they know which ones
they got wrong and they can go back and investigate.
Learning management systems do allow you toput additional feedback in there where you

(47:09):
get it wrong and it might say, well go checkpage such and such in your textbook, or this
is wrong because, and then they explainedsomething.
But when I first started putting this coursetogether, I just didn't have time to do that.
I just wanted to get it up there and goingand see how this experiment was going to work.

(47:31):
And luckily it did work, and I thought tomyself, well, maybe someday I'll go back and
add the feedback, but I found, no, I'm justgoing to add more questions, because it's
working the way it is without any additionalfeedback.
But you might want to consider adding someother kinds of feedback if you have the time
and you feel like that's necessary.
But I haven't found it to be something thatI think would be helpful.

(47:52):
Another thing about these tests is they aretotally untimed.
Now that first started back in another coursethat I was also putting my regular A&P course
where I was putting online tests in and ourserver just couldn't handle all the students
hitting the server around the same time, becauseI'd say it's got to be done on such and such

(48:13):
a date between such and such times, and youonly have an hour or 50 minutes or whatever
it was.
And back then, the college, most collegeshadn't really planned well for how much their
server was going to be used and how much bandwidththey were going to need and so on.
In here I was with a particularly large classand a bunch of those classes.

(48:35):
I had a huge number of students with a bunchof online tests with a bunch of items on it,
with all this randomization going on, andit just started crashing all over the place.
And the students they couldn't finish theirtest in the allotted time.
Man, I had a big mess.
And so I was working with our LMS manager,who's still there and is a great guy.

(48:56):
And boy, he really knows his education andteaching principles besides knowing how to
work in LMS and solve problems there.
And I've relied on him a lot throughout theyears.
Thanks Dave.
And he said, why are you timing them?
What good is that doing you or your students?

(49:18):
You don't need to time them.
Just tell them it's got to be done this weekand it doesn't even have to be done within
an hour.
Let them stop and start because I was alreadyletting them use open resources.
So that's another thing about the test I wantto mention.
They're open resource tests.
That is open book tests, but not just book,you can use a book, you can use videos, you

(49:38):
can do a search on Google if you want.
You can even ask these days artificial intelligenceI guess, to answer it.
Now, good luck to you, because I don't know,my experience with ChatGPT and some of those
things so far is not too reliable.
And even if you do get an answer, it's stillup to the student to decide is that really

(50:00):
the correct answer, or is ChatGPT hallucinatingagain or outright lying to me?
Because that happens, happens to me a lotat least.
So when I do things, I guess I haven't triedanswering test questions that way.
Maybe I should start doing that.
But anyway, the point is, is that it's alreadyopen resource.

(50:24):
And so what really is the timing going todo?
So I had a recent episode, hopefully you listenedto my discussion about that.
I think it really is not useful at all.
It doesn't accomplish anything to time ourtest.
But what it does do for a lot of studentsis it makes it inequitable for them, because
maybe English isn't their first language,and do we want to punish them because they're

(50:48):
a little bit slow because of the languagething going on?
What if they have some other kind of issue,like they're not neurotypical?
What if they have dyslexia?
What if they have some so-called learningdisability?
What if they have reading issues?
What if somebody in their household is alwaysscreaming in the background?

(51:11):
Or what if the baby keeps waking up or what?
Man, there's just all kinds of stuff goingon and there's no reason why it needs to be
timed.
And I'll tell you, for my accommodations thatI'm asked to give students that have documented
disability with our disability office, almostalways what they hand me is a form that says

(51:33):
that they need extended time on the test.
Well, you know what?
If it's good for them, it's probably goodfor a lot more students that don't have documented
issues.
They have undocumented issues, but they'restill issues.
So why not just remove the timing completelyso everybody's in the same boat?
If you don't need that much time, then youdon't take that much time.

(51:54):
If you need a lot more time, then you gotit.
So they're all untimed.
And that solved the server problem from theolden days when we didn't have enough server
capacity and server processing ability.
But it also had this unexpected silver liningto it.
And so I embrace it.

(52:15):
Now, I don't like timed tests anymore.
I just think, how could I have ever done thatbefore as an instructor?
So yay for untimed tests.
All right, so that's a little bit more detailabout how those tests work.
And there's some other things I want to talkabout in the next segment.
I want to talk a little bit about some othercourse features to fill in the blank to give

(52:44):
you that whole picture, that whole story thatI told you I wanted to give you.
One of the things I've found to be very usefulin this course is I do a video orientation.
Maybe you already do that in your A&P course,but I first started doing that in my Pre-A&P
course and it really had some unexpected benefitsto it.
So the video orientation is just me saying,hey, I'm Kevin.

(53:08):
I'm here to help you, and this is a reallyweird course.
Just be prepared for lots of weirdness.
It's not the classically designed course thatyou're used to, but that's okay, I'll help
you through it.
If you get lost, just yell out and I'll bethere to help you.
I'll be right next to you.
By doing a video orientation, they get thatpersona that I've talked about in other episodes.

(53:33):
They get the fact that I'm projecting helpfulnessand support and enthusiasm for the topic,
enthusiasm for the course and an admissionthat it's weird.
And yeah, you're going to need some help becausethis is weird.
And so you know what?
I'll help you.
It's almost as if I'm there and students havegiven me that feedback that they really appreciated

(53:56):
the fact that it seemed very personal to them.
They felt like they were meeting their instructorpersonally and getting some information and
getting some support from them before theyeven did anything.
And then I also provide an audio version sothey can listen to it in the car instead of
watching it on the video or listen to it whilethey're doing chores or something like that.

(54:19):
And sometimes that's even more personal whenyou have that voice in your ear, literally
in your ear because you have headphones orearbuds or whatever.
And so there's an audio option, and then there'salso a written option for people that need
that or want that, there's a transcript available.
So it's three different versions.
So that's going to help with the universaldesign aspect of it and the accessibility

(54:43):
aspect.
But I think it tells students that I'm providingthem lots of ways to succeed, and it starts
right now.
Another thing I do that I've mentioned I thinkin the way past on this episode, and that
is I have something called a student understanding.

(55:03):
So these are, I don't know, there's like nineor 10 key things that I really want students
to understand about the course, that you areexpected to be honest and not have somebody
else do your work for you.
That would be one point.
Now that's in my syllabus, it's in actuallyseveral places, and I'm going to circle back

(55:26):
to that in just a second.
And then I'll have some other policy or practicein our course that it's really important that
the student understand from the get go thatthat's the way we're doing things.
So as I say, I have nine or 10 of those things.
So I have them listed out as what I call thestudent understanding, and they can read through
that.
But then in the learning management system,I take each one of those and set them up as

(55:50):
a quiz item, where it'll have a statement,I must be totally honest in my dealings in
this course.
I must demonstrate academic integrity in thiscourse, however that's worded.
And then the test part of the item, it'llbe they can either choose, I understand, or
I do not understand.

(56:12):
And the correct answer is, I understand.
And they're told if they don't understandan item, then come and talk to me and I'll
explain it to them, and we'll make sure thatyou do understand and you can take it over
again.
So if you really don't understand, don't checkthat box.
So they go through it, and if they've checked,I understand, I understand.
I understand for each one of those main itemsdrawn from the syllabus, then they get 100%.

(56:37):
And as soon as they get nine out of nine,that unlocks the first module.
So they can't even do the first test untilthey've done the student understanding.
And by the way, for the sake of student attendance,because we know we got to watch that because
paperwork, right?
Record keeping, right?
Because of that, I tell them, the studentunderstanding does not count as taking a test.

(57:00):
That's not really a test.
It's in the form of a test, but it's not reallya content test.
So if you take the student understanding andthat's it, and you wait a while before you
take your first attempt, the first moduletest, I will mark you as being absent, because
you're not participating.
So that has to be made clear.

(57:22):
And then getting back to this academic integritypart of it, I do give them a lot of information
on academic integrity, a lot of informationon it.
Because I found that a lot of students thatwant to be honest and they want to do the
right thing, they don't always understandwhat is allowed and what is not.

(57:42):
They don't always understand what's a violationof academic integrity.
I do that, and especially because this isyes, a weird, weird, weird course.
And so they're not always clear on, well,what help can I get?
Can I ask my brother who's a physician?
Sure, you can ask, but you can't have yourbrother take your test for you.

(58:03):
You can ask your brother some questions andthen you decide, what is the answer to this
question?
Am I going to take his word for it?
Does he even understand what this questionis the way I do?
And so, yeah, you can do some collaborationif you want.
You can look things up if you want.
So because it's weird in that way, studentsdo have a lot of questions like, well, what

(58:27):
is acceptable, not acceptable?
So if I give them good information, say, yeah,you can do this, can't do this, but you can
do that and give them some solid examples,that really helps a lot.
It makes them feel more confident that they'redoing the right thing.
Because I think especially with that videoorientation where I set things up that way,
I think they really want to do right?

(58:47):
I think they really do see that this is acourse that's going to benefit them and it's
going to make them more likely to succeedin A&P.
So they're not really looking for ways aroundit.
They're looking for ways to really make itwork for them.
Another thing I do in this course that mayseem weird to you and often seems weird to

(59:08):
students, but becoming less so as time goesby, and that is using badges, digital credentials,
and I've talked about those in previous episodestoo.
I'll have a link to those in the episode notesif you want to go back and review that.
But every module that they pass, they geta badge.
And we use Canvas at our school right now,and there's a way to integrate badges into

(59:32):
Canvas.
Actually we use Canvas badges, used to bebadge or badges.
Other learning management systems also usuallyallow integration of badges.
So this is not unique to Canvas.
And so when they do module one, they get aB or better, then they're going to get a badge
for basic science.
And then when they pass module two, then theyget a badge for intro chemistry and so on.

(59:59):
So they get a badge for each one of those.
So that's a little bit of motivation for themto build up the badges, and they can take
those badges in their badge backpack, andthey can display that and display it on LinkedIn
if they want, or they can display it in theirbackpack, they can display it in various places
to show their other teachers or other studentsor whatever, that yep, I've had training in

(01:00:23):
biological chemistry.
I've had training in making proteins.
Actually the badge is called protein synthesis,even though the module is called making proteins.
And so they get a badge for every module thatthey pass, and then they get a badge for the
whole course when they pass the final exam.
Another thing in this course is somethingI added late in the game, it's only been in

(01:00:48):
there a few years now, but it's worked betterthan I thought it would.
At our school we are involved in quality matters,where there's this rubric that they want you
to follow in designing your online course,and you check this box and check that box.
Yes, I have this, I have my syllabus available.
Yes, I have this.

(01:01:08):
Yes, I have this.
And I have a love hate relationship with qualitymatters.
I really have problems with the checklistthing and you must have this in every course
because I think that especially in courseslike this that are weird and experimental,
sometimes you want to go off and do somethingdifferent.
And if there's a requirement that you haveto follow the rubric and no ifs, ands or buts,

(01:01:33):
no exceptions.
Well, I get the idea that that keeps out theriffraff, right?
Somebody that wants to put up a course andnot put any effort into it, and it's not a
good course.
But sometimes you can make a good course that'svery minimalistic, I think, and I just don't
think some of these programs allow for that.
So okay, that's my little rant about qualitymatters.

(01:01:54):
But even so, even though there's some downsidesto it, there are some upsides.
And one of the things I didn't have in mycourse that is in the rubric, and I didn't
think I needed it in the course, and I don'tthink I absolutely needed, but I put it in
the course and that is a discussion.
How am I going to do a discussion when it'sself-paced and everybody's at a different
place and everybody has different weak spotsthey're working on?

(01:02:18):
Oh man, this is just, I don't know how a discussion'sgoing to work.
So what I ended up doing is I put a discussionform in there, and when they get past test
four, or maybe it's test five, then I, insteadof automatically proceeding to the next module,
they're dumped into this discussion whereI say, okay, in order to get to the next module,

(01:02:44):
you have to post something in this discussionthread.
So what got you here was passing the previousmodule.
What gets you to the next module is postingsomething.
What do I want you to post?
I want you to post why you're here.
Why are you taking A&P?
What's your goals?
And also think about posting a word of encouragementfor people coming into this discussion after

(01:03:08):
you do, because you're all going to be comingin here at a different time.
So why don't you post something in there like,hey, I made it this far, you made it this
far, I think we can do this.
That sort of a message and put it in thereand try to encourage one another.
And you know what?
They do that, they share they about themselvesand why they're there.

(01:03:33):
They encourage one another, and I think it'sa good thing to just stop in the middle of
this quest that they have to get all the waythrough.
I'm taking this module, I pass it.
I'm taking this module, one attempt, two attempt,three attempt.
Okay, now I'm in the next module, one attempt,two attempt.
Okay, next module.
And they're really working through this, andsome of them are trying to work fast too.

(01:03:56):
Now they have to stop.
They have to take a brain break and thinkabout something different and think about
it in a different way and write out theirthoughts.
And we know there's research that shows, andI've talked about this in previous episodes,
that when you do a midterm debriefing andthink about why am I here and how's it going

(01:04:17):
for me and stuff?
That that really does help solidify learningin a real concrete way, much more so than
I ever thought it could.
Here's a way to do that, is to put in a midtermdiscussion, and in this case, that midterm
discussion might come early, might come latein that little minimester.
It depends on how quickly that student isprogressing through that success pathway.

(01:04:41):
Getting from module to module to module.
Another thing I do is I have intentionallyscheduled, intentionally supportive announcements
built into the course.
So when the course starts, I already havethem scheduled at key times throughout the
semester reminding them when the final examis going to open.

(01:05:02):
The final exam opens halfway through the minimaster.
It's not open at the beginning.
And that was a compromise negotiated withthe financial aid people, because they didn't
want to be given financial aid for somebodywho finished the course the first day.
Now, nobody's going to finish it the firstday.
That just doesn't happen.

(01:05:23):
But theoretically I guess it could.
And so the discussion went back and forthabout, yeah, this is a good idea, Kevin, but
this isn't going to fit our model of how wedetermine whether someone qualifies for financial
aid or not.
So we want them to be in there at least for50% of the mini master.

(01:05:43):
So the way to do that is to not open the finalexam until the halfway point.
Now, even if they finish all the modules beforethat, they have to sit and wait before they
can take the final exam.
So they do that.
And then so I'll give an announcement thatsays, hey, exam open today.
That means we're at the halfway point, andhopefully you're doing well, and if you're

(01:06:06):
not close to halfway, you better get rollinghere because you don't have a whole lot of
time left.
And so I'll have various announcements like,hey, don't forget our college learning center
if you need help.
Hey, don't forget I'm here if you need help,here's how you can reach me.
Hey, remember this date is coming up.
Remember here's the deadline for the course.
You have to have your final exam finishedand passed by such and such a date and time.

(01:06:31):
Don't forget your badges.
Hey, you're earning badges.
Why don't you take a look at the leaderboardand see where you stack up compared to the
other students.
I have all of these things in there.
And what that means is I'm touching base withthem automatically, but still touching base
with them throughout the minimester.
And if you have any experience in teachingonline courses, especially online courses

(01:06:53):
that have a real loosey-goosey schedule, andI have no schedule pretty much in my course.
So that's a big problem in my course, is theylose track of the course and get behind.
And the behinder you get, the harder it isto catch up, right?
So by doing this I'm constantly nudging themand saying, hey, I'm here.

(01:07:14):
I'm here to help.
Still here.
Hey, are you still working on that course?
You ought to be working on that course.
Hey, why don't you work on that course?
And so that keeps them going.
I have far less problem once I started doingthat, far less problem with students getting
behind and not catching up.
And that is a big danger in online coursesin general, and it's an even bigger danger.

(01:07:37):
It's a huge danger when you have a self-pacedcourse.
Another question you might have for me, becauseI do get this question sometimes, is like,
well, what do you do, if they're doing allthis work and they're all at different paces,
you just sit back and let the course run itself?
Well, I guess in a way I do, but I do havea role, and I actually specify that in several

(01:07:58):
different places in the syllabus and otherplaces in the course.
But let me read you just one short passagewhere I actually have a little section called
faculty role, and then I come back to it fromdifferent angles in different places in the
course.
But under the heading of faculty role, I say,because this course is self-paced and self-directed,

(01:08:20):
it is also a student-centered course.
Your instructor provides an evidence-based,carefully constructed success pathway of review
resources, informative, in parentheses, learnby retrieval, in parentheses, tests and an

(01:08:40):
exam.
The instructor also provides study tips andcoaching advice through various course links,
regular course announcements with advice tohelp keep you on pace for success, and is
available for individual help as needed throughoutthe week.
There are no class meetings or lecture sessions.

(01:09:03):
You will always find the instructor in oneof three places, number one, out in front
of you, cheering you on.
Number two, just behind you, to have yourback.
And number three, alongside you, so you knowyou're not going it alone.

(01:09:23):
So I remind the students that I'm there tobe their coach.
I'm there to be their support mechanism.
Now, I did a lot of work before the coursestarted to set it up and get it all arranged
and so on, but I'm going to be checking inwith you and you can be checking in with me
and you can get help from me anytime.

(01:09:44):
So those are some of the other features ofour course design.
Another question you might have is, does itwork?
Does this Pre-A&P course really do what Iwant it to do and give students that confidence
they want and need to do well in A&P?

(01:10:05):
Does it really fill in the blanks?
Does it really refresh that basic science,those foundations in science that they really
ought to have ready to go when they startthe A&P course?
Well, the answer in short is yeah.
Now remember, there is a mixed bag of students.
There are some students who really struggle,and that's why they wanted to take this course.

(01:10:26):
Some students did it because, well, they thinkthey're ready to go, but they don't meet the
requirements exactly because they timed outof the prerequisites.
So they're doing it to test out of the course.
And there are some students that are reallygood students who probably going to do very
well, but they've heard that A&P is rigorous,so they want to do everything they can to
be ready for it.

(01:10:47):
So there's just all kinds of students withdifferent kinds of backgrounds and different
kinds of challenges and different places thatthey are in their learning path.
So it's hard to measure really.
But when I do student surveys, and yeah, wedo have student teaching evaluations and yeah,
I don't put a lot of stock in those, but theyall come back where either 100% or close to

(01:11:14):
100% would recommend this course to otherstudents.
So that says a lot.
Because it is an optional course.
We did a study, when I say we, I mean somebodyelse in our institutional research department.
A few years after we started, I wanted toknow, is this really working or not?
And the guy who was working in that officeat the time said, oh, I love doing this sort

(01:11:36):
of thing.
Let me work on it.
And so what he did was he did some searchingand found my students that had taken the Pre-A&P,
and he followed up with them in their A&Pone course to see what their letter grade
was.
Did they get an A, B or C or whatever?
And he found that students got approximately0.4 something, approximately half of a letter

(01:12:00):
grade better if they had the Pre-A&P course.
And it didn't matter what their prerequisiteswere, it didn't matter when they took their
prerequisites, whether it was recently ora long time ago, it didn't matter, if they
had the Pre-A&P, they were likely to do betterin their A&P one course.
So yeah, that sounds good to me.

(01:12:21):
Another thing that I want to point out, Ihave a few little notes that I want to make
clear, ups and downs in presenting this courseand offering this course.
Developmental courses, they have some issues.
There's no credit toward graduation, so sometimesit's a hill to climb with some students.

(01:12:43):
Why would I want to take a course that doesn'tcount for anything?
Well, it's not that it doesn't come for anything.
It just doesn't come for a degree.
Is that really why you take courses?
Well, yeah, sometimes it's why they take courses.
It's not because they want to learn anythingreally.
But if you can get past that and say, look,if you really want to be prepared for A&P,
if you want to earn those credits toward graduationthe first time rather than the third time

(01:13:08):
taking A&P, then maybe you want to investin this course that's not for any graduation
credit.
It also sometimes can cause some financialaid issues, not so much these days, because
I think they have most of that worked out.
But if all you're taking are non-credit coursesand you're getting financial aid, that sometimes
can be problematic.

(01:13:29):
There are a lot of educators and educationcommentators and pundits that don't like developmental
courses because their problem with it is theirissue is why can't you just take college courses?
What is wrong with our educational systemthat you can't graduate from high school or
get a GED and then just start taking collegecourses?

(01:13:50):
Why is there this in-between stage where youhave to take developmental math and developmental
English, and in this case, developmental biologyin order to do well in your college courses?
Well, that is a good question, but I don'tthink the answer is get rid of developmental
courses.
Just skip it and hope for the best.

(01:14:11):
Because what's going to happen is you're goingto get students getting into those more rigorous
college courses, not all college courses,but the more rigorous ones like A&P, and they're
going to run into problems and they're goingto have to drop out and take it again and
drop out and take it again, and they may neverpass it.
And now they have all that time and moneyand effort wasted.

(01:14:32):
And not only that, they might just give upon higher education.
And maybe higher education really wasn't theircup of tea, but that's no way to find out,
is that way.
So to have helpful courses that bridge thegap, I think it's a good thing, even if some
people don't like it, and I can understandwhy they don't like it, but the way to solve

(01:14:55):
it is to not fight against developmental courses.
It's to fix the problem in the first placeand make sure that learning and that refreshing
is happening in some other way.
And remember, this is a refresher course,it's not really a developmental course in
the same way that developmental math or Englishis either.
Another issue with a course like Pre-A&P isit's not always easy to get buy-in from everybody

(01:15:20):
that needs to buy-in order for you to be ableto teach your course.
You can't, in any institution you can't justdecide, I'm going to teach this course and
it's going to have this kind of credit andit's going to do this and that.
It's going to count for this or not countfor that.
No, you're in a system, you got to get thewhole system and all these different people
to buy in.

(01:15:40):
The hurdle you have to jump over is it's different.
It's weird.
It's different.
And so you got to educate people about whatyour goals are and why you're using the techniques
that you're using in this course, what problemit's solving and all that.
The first hurdle is with your colleagues inyour department, and so you have to educate

(01:16:01):
them and get them on board.
And you know what?
It's hard to explain what this is and whyyou're doing it and why you might be using
some of the same techniques that I just spelledout here, because they're weird, they're different,
they're experimental in some ways.
And so yeah, that's a hurdle.

(01:16:22):
Another hurdle is, well, it's you.
It's like, oh, Kevin's got some hair-brainedidea again.
And so I got to get past that obstacle ofit's a Kevin thing.
And you probably face that too.
It's like some people are going to questionit just because it's coming from you.
Another thing is it's different.

(01:16:42):
It's weird.
Yeah.
Okay, now I'm talking about the college level.
I'm talking about your college administrators,not just in your department.
Let's say you're past that, you got buy-infrom your department.
Now what about your college people?
What about your deans and VPs and anybodyelse that gets wind of this?
What about the enrollment people?

(01:17:03):
They're going to have questions and concernsand they don't like things that are outside
the standard formula because that just makestheir job harder.
Nobody wants things to make their job harder.
It's the same thing with the financial aidpeople.
They're going to have questions and problemsand issues to solve, and they don't want to
have to do that.
So you're going to have to go over that hurdle.
And then you have the advising people.

(01:17:24):
They're the ones that are going to actuallyget you students in the course because students
are going to be like, what in the world isPre-A&P?
I don't need it.
And the advisors are going to be the onesthat sell your course for you, and you have
to get them on board.
I'd give you a little piece of advice, stayin touch with the advisors, and there's often
a lot of turnover among advisors, so keepstaying in touch with them, give them presentations

(01:17:48):
from time to time, check in with them, givethem data and so on, so that they can be a
good salesperson for your course.
It all boils down to it's hard to explain,and so now we got to explain it to a new set
of people throughout the college and enrollment,financial aid advising and so on.
So yeah, there's steps to take here.

(01:18:08):
It's not like a regular course.
It's a lot, not like a regular course.
And do some of your own advising.
Try to get your other faculty members whoare teaching the biology courses and the human
bio and other kinds of courses of prerequisitesand try to get them to encourage their students
like, hey, you just took human bio.

(01:18:30):
Why don't you do a capstone thing that's reallygoing to bridge the gap between this course
and your A&P course.
It's really going to get you ready for A&P.
So recruit more than just the official advisors,get some of the other faculty to be advisors
for you.
Another thing that I just want to point outone last time is students sometimes do find

(01:18:52):
it hard to adapt to the weirdness that I mentioned.
This course is weird, weird, weird, and it'shard to explain.
If I mentioned that too.
Yeah, it's hard to explain.
So there is a little bit of an uphill climb,especially at first, helping students understand
how the course is designed.
So be prepared for that.
And don't be discouraged by it.
It's just part of the game.

(01:19:13):
That just happens when you're doing somethingnew and different and exciting.
I also find that I have to do a lot of encouragingof students who struggle.
When students are struggling, they have totake a lot of attempts, and that can be discouraging
to them, and they don't always understandthat it's not multiple failures that are happening,

(01:19:34):
it's intense learning that's happening.
It's okay to fail and dust yourself off andfigure out what went wrong and get back up
again.
We do that in sports and don't get overlydiscouraged.
Right?
We just keep on going.
We fall over, we pick ourselves up, we missthe shot on goal.
We do things like that.
Well, it's the same thing here.
So we have to put on our coaching gear andblow the whistle, and we need to tell students

(01:20:01):
that it's okay.
It's better than okay.
This is how the course works.
This is what we need to do.
And you know what, I'm telling you that too.
When you get to those points where you'rereally having to deal with these struggling
students and you're really having to engagewith them, that's okay.
It's better than okay, because isn't thatwhy we do this?

(01:20:23):
Isn't that what we get out of it ourselves,is being there as a student struggles and
help them get past that obstacle and see thatthey can do it and see that they have that
success in themselves, that ability for successin themselves.
That's what I love about teaching, helpingstudents see themselves as capable of success.

(01:20:49):
I love helping students build their confidenceso they're ready for A&P.
And they're not ready just for A&P, they'reready for all the rest that follows that.
Isn't that a great thing to participate inthat with our students?
Yeah, it is.

(01:21:10):
In this episode, I described a weird but effectiverefresher course that my A&P students can
take just before they start their A&P onecourse.
This Pre-A&P course covers the key conceptsthat we want and need our students to have
ready to use when they first hit our A&P course.

(01:21:33):
The basic stuff that we hope they rememberfrom their prior courses, but hardly ever
really do.
It's a self-paced course, and it's personalizedso that students can quickly review what they're
already good at, but slow down and catch upwhen they hit a weak spot.

(01:21:54):
This optional course builds their confidencetoo, so that they're less likely to feel overwhelmed
and afraid at the beginning or middle or maybeall the way through their A&P one course.
Thinking about trying some of these ideasyourself?
You may want to share this episode with yourcolleagues and supervisors before you start

(01:22:19):
having those conversations.
Simply go to theapprofessor.org/refer to geta personalized share link.
As always, I have links to more informationin the episode notes.
If you don't see those links in your podcastplayer, go to the episode page at theapprofessor.org/140,

(01:22:47):
where you can explore any ideas mentionedin this podcast.
And while you're there, you can claim yourdigital credential for listening to this episode.
Let's hear about your experiences helpingstudents get ready for their A&P course.
Just call the podcast hotline at 1-833-LION-DENor 1-833-546-6336, or send a recording or

(01:23:17):
written message to podcast@theapprofessor.org.
I'll see you down the road.

>>Aileen Park: The A&P Professor is hosted by Dr. Kevin Patton, (01:23:26):
undefined
an award-winning professor and textbook authorin human anatomy and physiology.

>>Kevin Patton: This podcast is now available without a prescription. (01:23:39):
undefined

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Pre-A&P: A Refresher for Student Success in Anatomy & Physiology | TAPP 140