HAPS is a society focused on the teaching and learning anatomy and physiology. We’re always looking for new members to join the community. Check out some thoughts from new HAPSter, Shani Golovay.
“But I have a degree in Plant Biology. I don’t really know anything about Human Physiology, except what I teach in General Biology.” And this started my journey to HAPS.
I found the HAPS website to be helpful as soon as I joined. I hunted down the Course Guidelines and Learning Outcomes right away because I needed a syllabus and some ideas on how much content to cover in the course. Then I found the Guided Inquiry Activities by Murray Jensen. I tried out the activities with my students right away- and they loved them. I was starting to feel like I could teach this class after all, and I felt like I had a giant community of people helping me that I didn’t even know.
I learn more from the HAPS email listserv then I do from most professional journals I receive. I was amazed how open and helpful everyone was with each other. I look forward to the listserv conversations and I learn so much. It was so refreshing to find a whole group of people willing to share their expertise with those of us way out of our area. If I emailed someone a question, they would explain things and even send me documents or ideas. I am much more confident about teaching this Human Physiology class because of HAPS. I think Human Physiology may be my new favorite class to teach because of all the awesome ideas I get from other HAPSters. I was telling my colleagues about this society where everyone was nice and actually helpful and wanted to share ideas about teaching and everyone was impressed and a bit jealous that I had found such a group.
I am just so grateful to find a community of people where those with experience and lots of talent are willing to help those of us just starting out with these classes. We need each other because we can’t talk about this sort of stuff over dinner except with each other, right?
The best part for me was the annual meeting, but that is another blog post…..