The aim of this study was to establish whether children with a physical disability resulting from central nervous system disorders (CNSd) show a level of arithmetic achievement lower than that of non-CNSd children and whether this is related to poor automaticity of number facts or reduced arithmetic instruction time. Twenty-two children with CNSd…

Results of a study designed to determine the effectiveness of implementing three-dimensional (3D) stereo images of a human skull in an undergraduate human anatomy online laboratory were gathered and analysed. Mental model theory and its applications to 3D relationships are discussed along with the research results. Quantitative results on 62 pairs…

The debate around which factors drive medical students' learning is ongoing and controversial. What is the influence of an assessment's weighting on the motivation of students to study the particular subject? One medical school in London is in a unique position to investigate this question. At our institution, the weighting of Anatomy within the…

The debate surrounding the use of cadavers in teaching anatomy has focused almost exclusively on the pedagogic role of cadaver dissection in medical education. The aim of this study was to explore the wider aspects of a body bequest program for teaching and research into gross anatomy in a University setting. A retrospective audit was undertaken…

Dilated canine hearts were used to teach undergraduate students internal and external cardiac anatomy. The specimens were dilated using hydrostatic pressure and then fixed using 5% formalin. These specimens provided the students with an alternative to prepackaged embalmed hearts and anatomical models for studying the external and internal cardiac…

Given the important role that anatomical dissection plays in the shaping of medical student attitudes to life and death, these attitudes have not been evaluated in the context of whole body donation for medical science. First year students of anatomy in an Irish university medical school were surveyed by questionnaire before and after the initial…

The University of California at Davis School of Medicine offers a prematriculation program to nontraditional students. As part of the program, students take a 7-day course on the gross anatomy of the upper limb that concludes with a written examination and a practical examination based on prosections. Here, the performance of students who took the…

In this article, the author profiles Dr. Jack Kessler, chair of the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Jack Kessler is a renowned stem cell expert and researcher. For years, Dr. Kessler had been researching ways to repair damage to the nervous system. It was not until his own daughter became…

Clinical teachers often complain that medical students have forgotten or somehow "lost" knowledge that has been taught at pre-clinical levels at the time of entering the clinical part of education. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore, whether transfer of knowledge was identified as a problem by the teaching staff of…

The aim of this study is to research the effect of the 5E instructional model on primary (sixth grade) student success during the circulatory system unit. This study was conducted with 38 students in two different classes by the same researcher in 2006-2007. One of the classes was assigned as the control group and the other as the experimental…

Think-aloud and pre-test data were collected from 49 undergraduates with varying levels of prior domain knowledge to examine the relationship between prior domain knowledge and self-regulated learning with hypermedia. During the experimental session, each participant individually completed a pretest on the circulatory system, and then one 40-min…

A central theme of the "National Science Education Standards" is teaching science as an inquiry process, allowing students to explore an authentic problem using the tools and skills of the discipline. Research indicates that more active participation by the student, which usually requires higher-order thinking skills, results in deeper learning.…

Teaching the anatomy of the muscle system to high school students can be challenging. Students often learn about muscle anatomy by memorizing information from textbooks or by observing plastic, inflexible models. Although these mediums help students learn about muscle placement, the mediums do not facilitate understanding regarding integration of…

This paper operationalized the notion of knowledge convergence and assessed quantitatively how much knowledge convergence occurred during collaborative learning. Knowledge convergence was defined as an increase in common knowledge where common knowledge referred to the knowledge that all collaborating partners had. Twenty pairs of college students…

A brief reveiw of the anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics of bone is presented. The effects of exercise and disuse on bone density and bone mineral are stressed. (Author/MT)