Zofia K. Gajdos, Ph.D.
Curriculum Fellow and Lecturer
Infectious Diseases Consortium
October 15, 2012
Overview
 Practical/organizational tips
 Content development tips
 Style/delivery tips
Practical/organizational
#1: Look at a regular calendar in addition
to the academic calendar.
Holiday Weekend!
Practical/organizational
#2: Put more detail into the policies in
your syllabus than you think is
necessary.
Sample of partial course policies
Brainstorm: other practical tips?
 Look at syllabi from other faculty with successful
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courses
Use the course website – the sooner you use the
website, the more the students will use the website
Send a test email to all of the students – check for
multiple email addresses
Have an email policy in your syllabus
Try to get to know the culture of the school a bit
Make your expectations clear in the syllabus
Use the resources of the school
Content development
#3: Use the textbook resources!
Textbook resource examples
Pearson: masteringaandp.com
Textbook resources: Human
Physiology
Test bank
Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach, 6e (Silverthorn)
Chapter 23 Endocrine Control of Growth and Metabolism
1) The action of a hormone on a target cell involves effects on
A) receptor proteins.
B) nonreceptor proteins.
C) lipids.
D) receptor and nonreceptor proteins.
E) receptor proteins and lipids.
Answer: D
Section Title: Review of Endocrine Principles
Learning Outcome: 23.1
Skill: Level I: Reviewing Facts and Terms (Bloom's Taxonomy: Knowledge)
2) The endocrine gland that is a modified sympathetic ganglion is the
A) thyroid.
B) anterior pituitary.
C) posterior pituitary.
D) adrenal cortex.
E) adrenal medulla.
Answer: E
Section Title: Adrenal Glucocorticoids
Learning Outcome: 23.1
Skill: Level I: Reviewing Facts and Terms (Bloom's Taxonomy: Knowledge)
Instructor Manual
CHAPTER
23
Endocrine Control of Growth
and Metabolism
Teaching Summary
The key points discussed in this chapter are:
 Long-term metabolic control involves cortisol (adrenal cortex), thyroid hormones (thyroid
gland), and growth hormone (anterior pituitary).
 Endocrine pathologies are generally the result of disturbances in hormone control
pathways—too much or too little hormone produced, or abnormal tissue responsiveness.
Pathologies are characterized by the nature of the disturbance and by the portion of the
control pathway affected. (See Chapter 17.)
 Cortisol is essential for life; its metabolic effects are all aimed at preventing hypoglycemia.
 Thyroid hormones affect quality of life: their overall effect in adults is to provide
substrates for oxidative metabolism.
 Growth hormone is necessary for normal growth in children. Growth hormone, interacting
with insulin, IGFs, thyroid hormones, and sex hormones, controls growth of bone and soft
tissue. In adults it interacts with IGFs and other factors to stimulate soft tissue growth.
 Bone is dynamic tissue—always being formed and resorbed. This is primarily to ensure
adequate levels of free calcium. Hormones involved in calcium balance are: parathyroid
hormone, calcitriol, and calcitonin.
Student Learning Objectives
These objectives also appear in the Student Workbook.
When students complete this chapter, they should be able to:
 Describe the anatomy of the adrenal glands, identify the steroid hormones produced by the
three zones of the cortex, and highlight how these steroid hormones are synthesized.
 Diagram the HPA pathway and include all feedback signals.
 Describe cortisol secretion patterns, how it is transported, its target cells, where the
receptors are, how it creates a cellular response, and its metabolic effects.
 Identify the hallmarks of hypercortisolism and hypocortisolism and distinguish between
potential causes (iatrogenic, primary, and secondary causes).
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Identify the additional physiological functions of CRH and ACTH.
Content development
#4: Break up the lecture into smaller
chunks.
“Clicker” questions
Mini-activities
Case studies
Content development
#5: Make your slides well in advance.
From outline…
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First lecture: overview of the course with logistics, what is physiology, preview of the core concepts
o Talk about the core concepts in brief in lecture 1 and then expand upon them in the next
three lectures
How to teach the information
o Pick examples to run through
Start from membranes--why do you need membranes as a function of regulation
o Start from the cell--which may fit in well with their cell biology course (precursor to the class)
 Fundamental building block of a biological system
 Cell is a membrane bound system
 Highlight the core concepts in the context of membranes
 Can even talk about the modern research on how life began
 Maybe incorporate into quiz or problem set question
Lecture 1: membrane architecture and why you need a membrane
o Intracellular vs. extracellular side
o Talk about transport briefly
Lecture 2: transport
o Highlight examples of different types of transport across the membrane
o Foreshadow stuff for neuro and endo
o Need to cover gradients (concentration and electrical)
o Active and passive transport across nuclear and plasma membranes
Lecture 3: regulation
o Receptors on the outside of the membrane
o Influencing cells from the outside and from the inside
o Case study example
o Follow a protein from nucleus to its target, part 1
 To out of cell
Lecture 4: synthesis of this, regulation part 2
o Follow a protein from nucleus to its target, part 2
 From out of cell to target
o Follow a hormone so it leads into endo (which is next set of lectures)
o Transport across ER membrane
…to lecture
Content development
#6: Get feedback from others before you
give your lecture.
And then lots of really dense text down here that puts way too much information on the
slide and makes everything pretty much impossible to read. Yikes this slide is busy! How can
anyone possibly get anything about of this? And the figures aren’t even about the same topic
or type of hormone!
Peptide hormones at their targets
Brainstorm: other tips for content?
 Don’t lose your bridges/transitions
 Don’t post your slides until after you’ve practiced your
talk (if you have time)
 Don’t beat up on yourself if it’s not perfect the first
time
 Don’t be afraid to ask other instructors for
advice/syllabi/images
Style and delivery
#7: Get feedback from others after you
give your lecture.
Things you might do that you’re not
aware of…
 Pause words
 “um”
 “uh”
 “so”
 “like”
 “mmm-kay”
 Many other longer phrases
 Fidgeting
 Pacing
Style and delivery
#8: Practice as much as you can.
Style and delivery
#9: Be aware of where the microphone
is/what the acoustics and lighting of
the classroom are like.
Brainstorm: other tips for style and
delivery?
 Check out all of the a/v
 Practice runs of videos
 Check multimedia – make sure it works
 End 5 minutes before your end time – gets higher
retention…
 Don’t forget about what time it is
General tip!
#10: Remember to have fun!
Brainstorm: other final tips?
 Google is your friend
 TED talks and Khan Academy – good sources for
videos
 Know more than you think you do
 Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t do everything that
you want to do
 Take a few notes after each class about what you’d do
differently next time – you won’t remember it, so write
it down – helps you do more each iteration