Student-Designed Physiology Laboratory

该项目的目标是(1)使学生设计的新的人类生理学实验室模式得以实施，该模式将科学探究与需要一个生理学实验室的几门课程结合起来；(2)正式评估利用学生设计的实验室作为教学方法的课程目标。这种实验模式使学生能够设计自己的实验练习，收集数据，并使用微型计算机技术分析他们的数据。该项目将国家教育协会提出的若干建议作为其目标。利用该大学现有的有限设备进行了一项试点研究。虽然学生们在尝试自己创建实验时学到了许多关于方法、控制和财务限制的知识，但他们受到缺乏变量收集工具和更复杂的数据分析能力的限制。该项目的新设备包括六台带有软件和传感器的微型计算机，用于评估心脏功能、通过波形分析评估大脑功能、肌肉功能、与运动/健身相关的数据、呼吸功能、皮肤温度和振荡性皮肤反应。此外，新的微型计算机辅助软件使学生在实验设计中发挥更积极的作用。在设计实验室中扮演更积极的角色使学生能够更熟悉实际的科学过程，即创造实验背后的想法，而不是简单地执行食谱类型的实验室练习。

The goals of this project are (1) to make possible the implementation of a new student-designed human physiology laboratory model which integrates scientific inquiry ilto several courses requiring a physiology laboratory and (2) to formally assess curricular goals that utilize student-designed laboratories as pedagogy. This laboratory model enables students to design their own laboratory exercises, collect data, and analyze their data with the use of microcomputer technology. The project addresses a number of recommendations from national educational associations as its goals. A pilot study was conducted with the limited equipment available at the university. While the students learned a great deal about methodology, controls, and financial constraints as they attempted to create experiments on their own, they were limited by the lack of variable gathering instrumentation and more sophisticated data analysis capabilities. The new equipment for this project includes six microcomputers with software and transducers to assess cardiac function, brain function by wave analysis, muscle function, exercise/fitness-related data, respiratory function, skin temperature, and galvonic skin response. In addition, new microcomputer-assisted software enables students to take a more active role in experimental design. Taking a more active role in designing laboratories enables the student to become more acquainted with the scientific process as it actually is, i.e., creating the ideas behind the experiments and not simply performing a cookbook-type laboratory exercise.