Advances in Physiology Education, Vol 271, Issue 6 48-S54, Copyright © 1996 by American Physiological Society
Cooperative quizzes in the anatomy and physiology laboratory: a description and evaluation
M. S. Jensen
General College, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455, USA. jense005@maroon.tc.umn.edu
Physiology educators read journals, such as this one, to gather ideas about
curriculum and instruction. Most articles focus on curriculum (i.e., what
is taught), but this paper will focus on instruction (i.e., how curriculum
is implemented). Just as there are different types of curricula, there are
different types of instruction. The most common strategy is lecture.
Lectures are extremely efficient for delivering large amounts of
information in a short period of time. A common laboratory strategy is
discovery or inquiry-based learning (i.e., giving students tools, cognitive
and physical, to deduce new information via investigations). A third
instructional strategy is the use of cooperative learning. Proper
conditions are required for each instructional strategy, and problems arise
when the wrong combinations are put together. This paper will describe how
a cooperative learning environment can be created in the anatomy and
physiology laboratory through the use of cooperative quizzes. It will
include a brief introduction to the pedagogical theory behind cooperative
learning and an evaluation of the effectiveness of quizzes compared with
more traditional methods.
