Interactive Multimedia for Developing Ciritical Thinking in Biology Based on the New Benchmarks Curriculum Model

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Human Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) education today is constrained by three realities: 1) the area of coverage as defined by the standard texts is large and expanding, 2) in- depth understanding of even one body systems takes considerable time and skill to develop and 3) most students are poorly prepared for the kind of learning that generates in-depth understanding. In our current CCD project we have developed a new Benchmarks Curriculum which addresses these facts. It has become apparent that there is significant interest in our curriculum, but many instructors find departing significantly from the standard A&P curriculum difficult because they cannot offer adequate forms of support to their students. Commercial text books have tended to set the de facto curriculum standard in A&P because they are the major learning support resource. This standard entails extensive but superficial coverage. Now, multimedia CD-ROM's are emerging as the central ancillary resource to the textbooks. Their design, however, is heavily influenced by the curricular model of the textbooks. We are proposing a new multimedia resource because we would like to use the power and appeal of this new medium to help instructors break away from the traditional curriculum and choose an alternate pathway. Our new Benchmarks Curriculum is such an alternative, fostering the development of in-depth content mastery along with the critical thinking and problem solving skills students need to successfully apply their A&P knowledge. Without good multimedia support, many students will probably be unable to obtain those skills. We believe this project has the potential to greatly amplify the impact of our new NSF supported Benchmarks Curriculum. The project has developed formal ties with the CUNY project in teacher preparation, an NSF Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation. Workshops will be conducted for faculty to help them incorporate modules produced into courses designed for or including students who are preparing to be teachers. NSF FORM 1358 (1/94)