Advances in Physiology Education, Vol 258, Issue 6 11-S15, Copyright © 1990 by American Physiological Society
Experience with a physiology workshop for high school and college teachers
D. C. Randall, J. Engelberg, B. A. Jackson, K. A. Ogilvy, W. R. Revelette, D. F. Speck, M. W. Vernon and D. T. Frazier
Department of Physiology, University of Kentucky, College of Medicine, Lexington 40536.
Science education in the United States at all academic levels is widely
perceived to need direct assistance from professional scientists. The
current dearth of quality applicants from this country to medical and
graduate schools suggests that our existing undergraduate and high school
science curriculum is failing to provide the necessary stimulus for gifted
students to seek careers in the health sciences. Recognizing the need to
become more directly helpful to high school and college science teachers,
members of the faculty of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at
the University of Kentucky College of Medicine held a 5.5-day Physiology
Summer Workshop during June, 1989. Participants included 25 college
teachers from Kentucky and 5 other states plus 22 Kentucky high school
teachers. The presence of the two levels of educators provided
communication about curricular concerns that would be best addressed by
mutual action and/or interaction. Each day's activities included morning
lectures on selected aspects of organ system and cellular physiology, a
series on integrative physiology, and afternoon laboratory sessions. The
laboratory setting allowed the instructor to expand on principles covered
in lecture as well as provided the opportunity for in-depth discussion. A
selection of evening sessions was presented on 1) grants available for
research projects, 2) obtaining funds for laboratory equipment, and 3)
graduate education in physiology.
