9- Blood Pressure

It is late.  We lost an hour this morning, which means my alarm clock is going to be particularly vile when it cheerfully erupts in about 6 hours.  And I can’t go to bed quite yet, because I am still preparing for my physiology class on Blood Pressure in the morning.  I started my preparations by reviewing my flipped video lecture on the topic.  This was a painful task, as I quickly found about 62 improvements I would LOVE to make to that set of video lectures.  (This is an unfortunate aspect of the flip: improving one’s lectures requires a significant input of time that is usually unavailable during the semester.)

As I watched my lecture with steadily increasing disgruntlement, I decided to look for interesting activities to engage students in my  morning class.  I turned to the APS Archive for inspiration and when I resurfaced an hour later, I had about 62 new activities that I was really excited to try (out of 151 hits on my very broad “blood pressure” search).  (This is another unfortunate aspect of the flip: developing/vetting activities to replace “lecture” requires a significant input of time that usually is subtracted from the sleep column.)

While it is highly unlikely that I will be able to pull any of these activities together for class in 7 hours, I thought I’d share the WEALTH that is OUT THERE for you flippin’ crazies who are trying to add more active learning to your lecture time.  Here are three of the 151 hits on my “blood pressure” search.

1. Laboratory activity: This article from Advances in Physiological Education describes a medical school’s efforts to replace a cardiovascular physiology lab that made use of anesthetized critters with one that makes use of fully conscious med students instead.
2. Flow diagrams: This resource contains complex flow diagrams that are visually interesting and informative.  I have a very VISUAL brain and I love the idea of students building flow diagrams like these.
3. Case study: This case focuses on neural control of the cardiovascular system.  It is extremely comprehensive and describes a scenario with a pregnant mama going into labor.

This is just a smattering of the amazing resources cataloged in the Archive of Teaching Resources.  Anyone else out there interested in adding MORE hours to each day?  Ahhhh, one can dream.  Enjoy the week!