1. Application of Core Concepts in Physiology to student-centered learning using conceptual frameworks
Jenny McFarland, PhD
Edmonds Community College
APS Teaching Section Symposium
Scientific Foundation for Clinical Practice: More Than a Pile of Facts 4 April 2016, San Diego CA
Supported by NSF grant DUE

2. Core Concepts in Physiology
This work is part of our Conceptual Assessment for Physiology project.
physiologyconcepts.org
The CAP (Conceptual Assessment for Physiology) project team has been working together for the past 6 years.
Mary Pat Wenderoth (University of Washington – Seattle)
Ann Wright (Canisius College)
Bill Cliff (Niagara University)
Harold Modell (Physiology Educational Research Consortium, PERC)
Joel Michael (Rush Medical School)
Jenny McFarland (Edmonds Community College)
This work is aligned with the recommendations of Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians (SFFP), Vision & Change (V&C) and the work of PULSE (the Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education).
NSF grant DUE

3. Critical Questions
Background – What do we know about how people learn? Lessons from other work.
How People Learn
Backwards Design
What are the core concepts in biology & physiology?
How can we help students acquire factual knowledge and conceptual understanding?
How can conceptual frameworks be used in teaching and learning?

4. Not just a pile of facts
“Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.” – Henri Poincaré
Facts are important,
but like stones, we must
first understand the
framework in which the
facts will be used.
Teaching and learning for
conceptual understanding
requires a framework
within which the facts
can be organized to serve
specific conceptual
learning goals.
La Science et l'Hypothèse (2001), English translation: Science and Hypothesis (1905), Dover abridged edition (1952)

5. Lessons Learned from “How People Learn”
Three major findings:
Develop BOTH a deep foundation of factual knowledge and a strong conceptual framework.
Build on prior knowledge & understand student misconceptions.
Enhance student’s metacognitive and self- assessment skills.
National Research Council 1999

6. Lessons Learned: Backwards Design What should your students be able to
DO at end of class?
Lessons Learned:
Backwards Design
LEARNING
OUTCOMES
What evidence do you collect to show that they can DO it?
ASSESSMENTS
What practice do you design to help them gain skill?
CLASS ACTIVITIES
Understanding by Design
Wiggins and McTighe 1998

7. Lessons Learned: Backwards Design What should your students be able to
DO at end of class?
Lessons Learned:
Backwards Design
Core concepts
& Conceptual
Frameworks,
not just a
“pile of facts”
What evidence do you collect to show that they can DO it?
ASSESSMENT
Conceptual
Assessments
What practice do you design to help them gain skill?
CLASS ACTIVITIES
active learning
Wiggins and McTighe 1998

8. What are Core Concepts in Biology & Physiology?
Core Concepts, Enduring Understandings, General Models, Big Ideas … are what we want students to understand and be able to apply long after they leave our courses.
How are they related to Backwards Design?
Understanding and being able to use Core Concepts … should be the learning outcomes that guide teaching, learning and program design.

9. Core Concepts in Biology (Vision & Change)
The Vision & Change report identified 5 core concepts for undergraduate biology.
Evolution
Structure and Function
Pathways & transformations of energy and matter
Information flow, exchange and storage
Systems: Living systems are interconnected and interacting
AAAS 2011

10. Core Competencies for Medicine
The Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians (SFFP) report identified competencies for Medical School and Pre-med preparation.
Homeostasis: E7, Explain how organisms sense and control their internal environment and how they respond to external change.
Evolution: E8, Demonstrate an understanding of how the organizing principle of evolution by natural selection explains the diversity of life on earth.
Common core concepts among our physiology concepts, Vision & Change & SFFP.
AAMC 2009

11. Physiology Core Concepts
Physiology core concepts identified from physiology faculty surveys
Homeostasis
Physics/Chemistry
Flow Down Gradients
Genes to Proteins
Levels of Organization
Cell-Cell Communication
Mass Balance
Cell Membrane
Causality
Interdependence
Evolution
Energy
Structure/Function
Scientific Reasoning
Cell Theory
Michael and McFarland 2011

12. How can we help students acquire factual knowledge and conceptual understanding?
The “Pile of Facts” approach:
Physiology has been traditionally taught using a textbook as a scaffold.
Instructor marches through the chapters, organized by organ system, with students in tow.
Instructional paradigm is often the explanation of the physiological function of anatomical structures.

13. How can conceptual frameworks be used in teaching and learning?
Instructors and students need different ‘scaffolding’ for teaching and learning of concepts.
“How People Learn” advocated for both a deep foundation of factual knowledge and a strong conceptual framework.
Core concepts can be “unpacked” to form conceptual frameworks (CF).
CFs can be used to guide teaching and learning so that factual knowledge can be introduced to support conceptual understanding.

14. What are Conceptual Frameworks?
A conceptual framework
is a hierarchical structure of a core concept,
that “unpacks” a concept into constituent ideas,
organizes knowledge and general principles,
makes explicit tacit knowledge & assumptions,
builds connections to prior knowledge, and
enables development of conceptual understanding.
McFarland et al. 2016

15. Conceptual Frameworks for physiology core concepts
We have “unpacked” three of the most important physiology core concepts into conceptual frameworks.
Flow down gradients (flux) – Michael & McFarland 2011
Homeostasis – McFarland et al. 2016
Cell-Cell Communication – Michael et al (EB poster)
physiologyconcepts.org

16. Homeostasis Conceptual Framework
Overview:  Organisms maintain a relatively stable internal environment while living in a changing external environment. This process involves a negative feedback system that requires a sensor(s), a controller (integrator) and effector(s). 
The organism maintains a stable internal environment in the face of fluctuating external environment.
A substantial change to a regulated variable (a perturbation) will result in a physiological response to restore it toward to its normal range.
Homeostatic processes require a sensor inside the body (“what can’t be measured can’t be regulated”)
Homeostatic processes require a control center (which includes an integrator).
Homeostatic processes require target organs or tissues, i.e. “effectors”.
McFarland et al. 2016

17. Homeostasis Conceptual Framework
Overview:  Organisms maintain a relatively stable internal environment while living in a changing external environment. This process involves a negative feedback system that requires a sensor(s), a controller (integrator) and effector(s). 
The organism maintains a stable internal environment in the face of fluctuating external environment.
A substantial change to a regulated variable (a perturbation) will result in a physiological response to restore it toward to its normal range.
Homeostatic processes require a sensor inside the body (“what can’t be measured can’t be regulated”)
Homeostatic processes require a control center (which includes an integrator).
Homeostatic processes require target organs or tissues, i.e. “effectors”.
McFarland et al. 2016

18. Homeostasis Conceptual Framework – negative feedback
A substantial change to a regulated variable (a perturbation) will result in a physiological response to restore it toward to its normal range.
A. The regulated variable is held stable by a negative feedback system.
Not all negative feedback systems are homeostatic.
The process of responding to a perturbation requires an action by a sensor, a control center and an effector (the components of a negative feedback system).
The sensor, control center, and effectors may be physically far from or near to each other in the body, and can even exist in the same cell.
McFarland et al. 2016

19. Homeostasis Conceptual Framework
Overview:  Organisms maintain a relatively stable internal environment while living in a changing external environment. This process involves a negative feedback system that requires a sensor(s), a controller (integrator) and effector(s). 
The organism maintains a stable internal environment in the face of fluctuating external environment.
A substantial change to a regulated variable (a perturbation) will result in a physiological response to restore it toward to its normal range.
Homeostatic processes require a sensor inside the body (“what can’t be measured can’t be regulated”)
Homeostatic processes require a control center (which includes an integrator).
Homeostatic processes require target organs or tissues, i.e. “effectors”.
McFarland et al. 2016

20. Homeostasis Conceptual Framework – sensors
Homeostatic processes require a sensor inside the body (“what can’t be measured can’t be regulated”)
A. Sensors detect the regulated variable and respond by transducing that stimulus into a different signal.
Sensors respond within a limited range of stimulus values.
Sensors generate an output whose value is proportional to the magnitude of the input to the sensor (i.e. the stimulus).
Sensors are constantly active (not just active when the regulated variable is not at the set point value).
An organ system may employ a variety of types of sensors (e.g. chemoreceptors, baroreceptors, mechanoreceptors, etc) to regulate variables associated with that organ system.
McFarland et al. 2016

21. Conceptual Framework: Importance vs. Difficulty
Idea II.A. is essential (5/5) & relatively easier to understand (3.29/5).
“The regulated variable is held stable by a negative feedback system.”
Idea III is important (4.67/5) & relatively difficult to understand (2.86/5).
“Homeostatic processes require a sensor inside the body …”
McFarland et al. 2016

22. Homeostasis Conceptual Framework (HCF)
The HCF can provide a guide for teaching and learning.
What ideas should students apply in a particular course?
What factual knowledge is important to master to understand and apply a concept?
Focus on conceptual difficulties, “sticky points”.
Focus on what faculty agree is “Essential” and give students practice with more difficult components.
Modell et al 2015; McFarland et al. 2016

23. Homeostasis Conceptual Framework (HCF)
The HCF can provide a guide for teaching and learning.
What ideas should students apply in a particular course?
What factual knowledge is important to master to understand and apply a concept?
Focus on conceptual difficulties, “sticky points”.
Focus on what faculty agree is “Essential” and give students practice with more difficult components.
The HCF presents a framework for conceptual assessment.
What constituent ideas require formative and summative assessment in a class?
What types of questions develop conceptual understanding?
Modell et al 2015; McFarland et al. 2016

24. Sticky points – Conceptual Difficulties
A ‘sticky point’ is any conceptual difficulty that makes one’s mental model of a concept or phenomenon inaccurate, and hence less useful.
Modell et al. 2015

25. Sticky points – Conceptual Difficulties
A ‘sticky point’ is any conceptual difficulty that makes one’s mental model of a concept or phenomenon inaccurate, and hence less useful.
The homeostasis conceptual framework can help address some of the “sticky points” we have identified, including:
What is a set point?
Do homeostatic mechanisms operate like an on-off switch?
What is the difference between an effector and a physiological response?
What does “relatively constant over time” mean?
Modell et al. 2015

26. Questions to develop conceptual understanding
Based on the homeostasis conceptual framework, we proposed a set of questions students should ask about any homeostatically regulated system, including:
What is the homeostatically regulated variable?
What and where is the sensor?
What and where is the control center?
What and where are the effectors?
How do effectors alter activities to produce a response?
Does the response lead to a change in the regulated variable consistent with error signal reduction (negative feedback)?
Modell et al. 2015

27. Conceptual Frameworks can provide a scaffold for helping students develop BOTH a deep foundation of factual knowledge and a strong conceptual framework.
Consider a ‘unit’ (a single class, topic, chapter …) that you ‘teach’ often that is particularly “content driven”.
Determine the core concept(s) and elements of the conceptual framework that students should be apply to apply.
Ask what questions would demonstrate conceptual understanding.
Design an instructional unit using elements of a conceptual framework and integrating enough factual knowledge for students to apply the concept.

28. Summary
Conceptual frameworks can be used to determine outcomes for backwards design.
They can help determine the factual knowledge required for conceptual understanding of a particular system or phenomenon.
They allow students and faculty to organize and select useful and relevant knowledge from the “pile of facts.”

29. Thank you! and thanks also to
The CAP (Conceptual Assessment for Physiology) project team:
Mary Pat Wenderoth (University of Washington – Seattle)
Ann Wright (Canisius College)
Bill Cliff (Niagara University)
Harold Modell (Physiology Educational Research Consortium)
Joel Michael (Rush Medical School)
The many physiology faculty who have responded to our surveys, participated in our workshops, come to our posters and talks. We are grateful to your continued support for this project.
The students, who have responded to our questions, participated in interviews and who inspire us.
This work has been supported by NSF grant DUE

30. References
American Association for the Advancement of Science Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action, Washington, DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Association of American Medical Colleges Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians. Washington, DC: AAMC.
Crowe , A., Dirks, C. and Wenderoth, M.P Biology in Bloom: Implementing Bloom's Taxonomy to Enhance Student Learning in Biology, CBE Life Science Education 6(3): 243­
McFarland et al. A conceptual framework for homeostasis: development and validation. Advances in Physiology Education. (accepted 2016)
Michael, J. and McFarland, J The core principles (“big ideas”) of physiology: results of faculty surveys. Advances in Physiology Education. 25:
Modell, H, Cliff, W., Michael, J., McFarland, J., Wenderoth, M.P. and Wright, A A physiologist’s view of homeostasis. Advances in Physiology Education. 23:
Modell, H.I How to help students understand physiology? Emphasize general models. Biochemistry and Advances in Physiology Education. 23:
National Research Council (NRC) How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school, expanded edition. Bransford J. D., Brown A. L., Cocking R. R., editors. National Academies Press; Washington, DC:
Wiggins G, McTighe J., 2006, Understanding by Design, Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

31. Physiology General Models
Harold Modell described 7 general models for analyzing physiological mechanisms (Modell 2000, Advances in Physiology Education).
Control systems (including homeostasis)
Cell-to-cell communication
Mass & heat flow (Flux or “flow down gradients”)
Transport across membranes
Conservation of mass (‘mass balance’)
Elastic properties of tissues
Molecular interaction
Modell 2000

32. Framing vs. a pile of facts
Henri Poincaré … on fait la science avec des faits comme une maison avec des pierres ; mais une accumulation de faits n'est pas plus une science qu'un tas de pierres n'est une maison. Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
La Science et l'Hypothèse (2001), English translation: Science and Hypothesis (1905), Dover abridged edition (1952)

33. Hierarchical levels of Conceptual Framework
The core concept for this the HCF is homeostasis.
The critical components are aspects of the concept that are essential for building an accurate mental model of this core concept.
The constituent ideas are elements that are necessary to develop a working understanding of each critical component of the core concept of homeostasis for undergraduate physiology education.
The cell-cell communications conceptual framework has an additional level: elaborations.