The Community College Anatomy and Physiology Education Research (CAPER) project is midway through its second year. Currently, two groups of community college A&P educators are engaged in the program that aims to both increase the use of active learning strategies in community college A&P classrooms and increase the quantity of education research conducted in two-year schools.
Instructors in the first group (Cohort 1) are currently in their second year of the project and are working with their mentors as writing/research consultants to prepare posters documenting their research. The posters will be presented at the 37th Annual HAPS Conference this May in New Mexico. A list of Cohort 1 members and their research questions can be found on the CAPER website.
Instructors in the second group (Cohort 2) are currently taking the HAPS I course Introduction to Education Research and developing ideas for their own classroom research projects which they will be conducting next year. This group met in person for a day in October 2022 to practice active learning techniques such as cooperative quizzes and guided inquiry learning. This daylong meeting took place in conjunction with the HAPS Regional meeting that was held at Northwestern University for Health and Science in Minneapolis. (Thanks again to conference host Joe Maldoon for both hosting a successful meeting and helping the CAPER team find meeting space.)
Along with poster presentations at the 2023 annual HAPS conference in New Mexico, the CAPER team will be hosting a couple of workshops where we will be providing more information about the NSF-sponsored CAPER project (IUSE 2111119). We may also be able to share some preliminary research findings on how to best educate students in entry-level A&P courses.
This summer, the CAPER team will be looking for the third set of participants for the program. Participants will need to be available on Tuesday evenings in order to complete a course on Educational Pedagogy in the fall and Education Research in the spring (2024). We also hope to arrange a one-day meeting in late September at the HAPS Regional at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin.
If you are looking for more information on the project, please contact us directly or find us at the HAPS meeting in May. You can also submit your name for participation by completing this survey
Murray Jensen – msjensen@umn.edu
Chasity O’Malley – chasity.omalley@wright.edu
Ron Gerrits – gerrits@msoe.edu