Incorporating Concept Maps into Physiology Laboratory Protocols to Support Content Mastery

The journey of an undergraduate physiology student weaves a tapestry of knowledge. Despite even the best pedagogical practices, misconceptions or missed key concepts are inevitable - in some respects, these (hopefully small) gaps may even be preferable for continued learning. Many degree programs have a capstone course or project that is the culmination of this journey. At Michigan State University (MSU), the Capstone Laboratory Course in Physiology has taken these knowledge gaps in stride and applied the use of concept maps to stitch the final pieces together. Concept maps are diagrams of physiologic phenomena and mechanisms broken down into simplistic parts, usually an effector and resultant change or process. Resembling circuit diagrams, these concept maps take an engineering approach to physiology, demonstrating how each component plays a role in the system in parallel or in series with each other. We used a collection of maps curated by Dr. William Wonderlin of MSU College of Human Medicine on a browser-based application of his own creation called PhysNav.org. In the pre-lab preparatory materials, students are shown a concept map showing the primary mechanism associated with a given week’s lab procedures. Each week students are asked to hypothesize the outcome of the in class experiment (e.g., “Will ECG lead I, II, or III show the largest QRS deflection”) and explain mechanistically using a concept map why they made that prediction. Before doing the weekly in-class human physiology lab protocol, students are asked to draw the map on a white board and annotate the changes that are expected to occur during an experiment based on their written hypothesis. Each team of students must verbally explain the mechanism and annotations to the teaching staff to be checked off before proceeding with the experiment. This checkpoint is essential to discover any misconceptions. Once approved, teams take a photo of the map to use for studying and post-lab homework. Students rate concept maps 4.23/5 for usefulness in review of content (n=53). The course also has independent projects where students develop their own concept map. Student rate concept maps 4.1/5 as being helpful for explaining project mechanisms (n=53). Student feedback about these concept maps has been positive, with some developmental critiques that have been well-received. Many students note that without these maps, they would not be prompted to diagram a concept or develop this type of approach to a mechanism. In conclusion, we have successfully incorporated concept mapping to ensure that lab protocols focus on physiology mechanisms and not just cookbook procedures. Michigan State University Department of Physiology. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.