I also thought the t-shirt and sheet idea were brilliant. It would be a great team activity where each team would take a different body system for the sheet.
Holly, I have have this to be a favorite method students like.
Michele Deck
I teach veterinary technology and we use a lot of stuffed animals for demonstration before we bring in live animals to work on. This works well for my diagnostic technologies class and my anesthesia class.
I think an idea like drawing out the flow of blood through the heart and lungs could be a good adaptation. What I think I would change would be having different types of cells. As this is their introduction to this process of oxygenation, I think I would prefer to only use oxygenated and deoxygenated cells to keep the teaching simple and focused on the main point. Also, mabey they could enter carrying a CO2 and exchange it with students in the lungs for an oxygen molecule.
Philip, I like the idea of trading carbon dioxide in the lungs for oxygen, this is a great improvement I will try next time I teach this.
Michele Deck
I like the T shirt idea. However, I teach physical exams for our vet tech program so I would have them use k-9 anatomy on the shirt. It would help the student visualize the location of the heart in the k-9 thorax.
Suzanne, thank you for adapting this idea to your own course content. Would a small child's tshirt and a stuffed dog be another option?
Michele Deck
I teach neurology and think I will use the tshirt idea as a way to teach the dermatome levels. What a fun way to interact with technical information. Thanks for the creativity!
I like the edible cell method, in stimulates their creative side and brings food into the mix, which with our students is a BIG motivator
Definitely going for the shower cap...I teach Head and Neck Anatomy
I like this method as well. It would be great to use in Periodontology. The students could draw a tooth, the gingiva(gums) and bone. They could illustrate the stages of gum disease from healthy to advanced disease. Great idea!
The t'shirt idea is a great, creative way to get the students involved and also, learn in a painless way.
When teaching how intracranial pressures are affected in head trauma, perhaps I could modify the shower cap idea. Not only would it reinforce the anatomical structures the students are supposed to remember, but I could have them come up with creating extra pieces to place on the cap to represent what happens when carbon dioxide crosses over into the brain.
The sheet activity would be useful to teach the neural pathways of the cranial nerves. I would add the different points where local anesthesia blocks the nerve.
anne, I have found this to be a successful way to teach a variety of learners, as well.
Michele Deck
Jerry, I would love to learn that content with the shower cap...wish I was there with your learners.
Michele Deck
I think using the methods that teach the students a way to learn(memorize) a procedure or process of terms, like using the ABG Go Fish, The Pulse Point Macarena, or The Story of Life for CPR. Any of these could be adapted for my material, I teach Head and Neck Anatomy, Pathology and Pharmacology. I could utilize these methods for learning the steps of the bloodflow of the heart, or memorizing drug names. Lots of good ideas.
Luisa, I like your adaptation. What a great way to learn the anesthesia blocking sites!
Michele Deck
Douglas, thank you for your positive feedback about the course materials. I appreciate it!
Michele Deck
Oriental Trading catalog has sheets of an outline of a human body. It comes with removable stickers of the different organs and their names. There are 12 sheets per packet with stickers for each sheet. I have a race to see who can put the stickers in the right location in the right orientation (upright vs. upside down) with the correct corresponding names.
They also 'brain hats' that can be made with stickers to locate what each area of the brain controls (ie. music, speech, critical thinking, etc) They were out of them for my current class, so I will use the shower caps instead!
I also use the edible cell. I use gelatin for cytoplasm and put it in a baggie. Then I put all of the candy 'organelles' in another baggie and pass them out to everyone. As we go over each one in lecture, they have to find the candy that represents that organelle. At the end they are to put the geletin baggie inside the now empty baggie to represent that the cell membrane is bi-layered.
For the heart I have used a 100 ft orange extension cord and taped it to the floor in the shape of the heart with the valves and path to the lungs. The sheet will be much less time consuming. I also use heart stickers to trace the electrical path and the student who represents the SA node uses a flash light to coordinate with contraction of the heart and the opening/closing of the valves. I use one student at a time to make the coordination easier. They wear blue uniforms so when they get to the lungs (represented by a student holding up 2 inflated baloons) they put on a red sweater. When they get to the capillary bed, I put 3 chairs with a pillow and blanket. They 'undress'(take off the red sweater) and lie down in the 'bed'. We then start with another student at the venules.
