Metabolic Syndrome (MetS), a cluster of cardiometabolic abnormalities including elevated waist circumference, low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood pressure, and elevated fasting glucose, affects nearly 35% of American adults. The presence of MetS both predicts and contributes to the development of…

Extra credit assignments are often viewed with disdain by educators as opportunities to earn points for students that lack the study skills to do well on exams and quizzes. However, these assignments can serve as a platform for students to apply the course material to their own lives, optimizing their strengths and creativity, and encouraging them…

This article has four aims. First, it will explain what factors led to the initial PHETE program review, and the phasing out of the traditional program at Penn State University. Second, it will describe the steps that were taken during the development of the Applied Exercise and Health dual-pathway degree option. Third, it will provide a…

We adapted a station-based teaching approach (SBA) to teaching in the Human Anatomy and Physiology I Laboratory (Anatomy and Physiology). In the SBA students rotate through stations that are taught by the instructor or teaching assistant (TA). At each station students are presented with content using a teaching modality selected to maximize…

The purpose of this study is to determine whether viewing narrated video clips improves student learning. The study was conducted with undergraduate, mostly Biology majors, in an Animal Physiology course held in successive semesters. When both classes were given the same face-to-face lectures and identical online resources their performance on an…

Students find it hard to understand acid-base homeostasis and the mechanisms involved in compensating for acid-base imbalances, including the role of the lungs and kidneys in this process. We have developed a laboratory activity based on collaborative problem-based learning and human patient simulators (HPSs) to teach this topic. Students (n=50)…

A considerable body of literature suggests that children's child-care experiences may impact adrenocortical functioning in early childhood. Yet emerging findings also suggest that the magnitude and sometimes the direction of child-care effects on development may be markedly different for children from higher risk contexts. Using data from a large…

Summed-similarity models of short-term item recognition posit that participants base their judgments of an item's prior occurrence on that item's summed similarity to the ensemble of items on the remembered list. We examined the neural predictions of these models in 3 short-term recognition memory experiments using electrocorticographic/depth…

Engineering is one of the most global professions, with design teams developing technologies for an increasingly interconnected and borderless world. In order for engineering students to be proficient in creating viable solutions to the challenges faced by diverse populations, they must receive an expe­riential education in rigorous engineering…

Educators are exposed to a variety of stressors, which can lead to poorer teaching performance, burnout, and increased student misbehavior (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Although self-report measures of stress are most commonly used in education research, physiological measures of stress may also contribute to the understanding of educators'…

This study evaluated prospective longitudinal relations among an index of poverty-related cumulative risk, maternal salivary cortisol, child negative affect, and maternal sensitivity across the first 2 postpartum years. Participants included 1,180 biological mothers residing in rural and predominantly low-income communities in the United States.…

Intervention studies indicate that children's childcare experiences can be leveraged to support the development of executive functioning (EF). The role of more normative childcare experiences is less clear. Increasingly, theory and empirical work suggest that individual differences in children's physiological stress systems may be associated with…

Learning-related behaviors are important for school success. Socioeconomic disadvantage confers risk for less adaptive learning-related behaviors at school entry, yet substantial variability in school readiness exists within socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. Investigation of neurophysiological systems associated with learning-related…

This curriculum guide was developed as a result of a project conducted in Pennsylvania to review, update, and revise the vocational-technical curriculum for cardiovascular technologists. The guide is organized in five sections. The first section describes the project, while the second section lists the minimum essentials for a cardiovascular…

This module on the musculoskeletal system is one of 17 modules designed for individualized instruction in health occupations education programs at both the secondary and postsecondary levels. It is part of an eight-unit miniseries on anatomy and physiology within the series of 17 modules. Following a preface which explains to the student how to…