INTRODUCTION
Hello and welcome to the 2009-2010 campaign in Human Anatomy and Physiology. Below you will find links to the course syllabus, course objectives, vocabulary list, exams and keys from last fall, and various handouts that I will be referring to in class. Please fell free to print these at your leisure and use them accordingly. I will not be making hard copies available. I have made available to you the written version of all the lecture notes. These follow the format of the Toolbook Computer Study Guides (please see below) and will very closely mirror the actual lectures (see below. I won't be making these available in hard copy, either.) These lecture notes are at best skeletal and give you the bare-bones materials for the class. They are not meant to supplant your own note-taking, reading, and studying.
A STRONG WORD OF CAUTION -- There are no quick fixes to master all this material headed your way. While I can give you handouts, computer and print study guides, copies of the PowerPoint lectures, vocabulary lists, objectives, and outstanding lectures, I cannot make you learn. YOU HAVE TO EARN WHAT YOU LEARN! Like Habitat for Humanity, there is a huge expectation on my part that you will invest a tremendous amount of sweat equity into this class. Look seriously at the handout I have posted below called The Study Plan, take it dead serious, and use it to guide the effort level you will need to be successful here. If you have always succeeded by cramming the weekend before a test, you are going to be in trouble. trust me!
WHAT ARE TOOLBOOKS AND HOW DO YOU USE THEM?
In your textbook package you should have received a text (Saladin), lab atlas (Eder), lab manual and study guide (Ballard), a DVD set (Anatomy and Physiology Revealed), and a CD. On the CD are all the materials we will be covering in class. These files are called Toolbooks, after the software package used to create them. I have tailor-made the books to meet the exact needs of the course, and while they do not completely take the place of your textbook studies, they are meant to give you considerable direction in the understanding of what can be an overwhelming amount of material. For some of you, your personal computer will not allow the software package to run. I wish I could help you solve this little puzzle, but it is completely beyond me. To use your CD (or try), do the following:
1. create a file under My Documents on your computer named Anatomy
2. open your CD in Windows Explorer and copy all programs into the file
3. go to Neuron and double-click it to install it on your computer
4. you should be able to double click any of the Toolbook files to open them
You will find that the study guides are written in a question-answer format, attempting to lead your THINKING through the material. The practice tests are meant to give you a good taste of how I test and to let you find out whether you understand the material prior to the real test. If you have problems, let me know.
POWERPOINT LECTURES
I am presenting classroom materials in PowerPoint, after many years of using the Toolbook program. While it isn't necessary to print them and bering them to class, you will likely find it useful to print out in the format that allows you to write lecture notes onto them. Folks in the past have this helpful. In addition, print yourself a copy of the lecture notes and use them in parallel with the PowerPoints.
MP3 LECTURE FILES -- SOMETHING I TRIED LAST YEAR AND LOTS OF PEOPLE LIKED
Every lecture, assuming I remember to turn on the recorder, will be digitally recorded (MP3 format) and the file placed up on this site immediately after class. I can only keep two lectures at a time here (again space limitations), but they will remain available to you to download to your computer or MP3 player until the next class.
READ THE SYLLABUS
Be sure to read the syllabus completely, carefully, and thoroughly. It is a contract between you and me. In particular, make sure you understand how your final grade is determined and that I DO NOT change grades after all the scores are in the book, regardless of circumstances. This is a constant source of frustration for a handful of students and for me.
A WORD OF CAUTION
Anatomy and physiology as a course is not some hurdle to be jumped to gain entrance to professional school. Rather, it is the bottom layer, the bedrock if you will, of a learning pyramid you will create the rest of your professional life about the human body, its parts and functions, its ailments, and treatment regimens currently used. A thorough and deep understanding, not a superficial one wherein you memorize lots of names and facts, will lighten your load considerably as you move through the remaining years of classes to attain your professional aspirations. To this end, I will be requiring, demanding really, that you do more than just cram into your brains inconsequential facts about the body. While it is vital that you learn the vocabulary, it is more important that you learn to USE the vocabulary to make parts work, to make processes happen, and to make the body function as a whole. Trying to rely on your past successes as a night-before-the-test memorizer will cause you to fail this class miserably. For 25 years I've had a 20 - 30% D - F rate in the fall semester for this very reason. You must study the material everyday and not only learn the names of all the "trees" but also be able to describe the role of the trees in the functions of the "forest." This will require time, dedication, and effort.
FINALLY...
Be sure to check this site occasionally as I will put up pertinent course information as necessary.
I hope you have a good and productive semester. Please do not hesitate to come see me the first instant you begin to feel that you are in trouble with your grades.
See you in class! Really, it's important that you come to see me live every class time. You're paying for it!
UPCOMING TENTATIVE TEST DATES
Test 1 (Intro, Cell, Tissues, Integument, Bone Tissue [not the skeleton]) -- Sept. 11
Test 2 (Skeleton [see handout 4], Joints, Muscle Tissue, Muscles [see handout 5]) -- Oct. 2
Test 3 (Nervous Tissue, Spinal Cord, Brain) -- not the spinal nerves or cranial nerves -- Oct. 23
Test 4 (Spinal Nerves [see handout 9], Cranial Nerves [see handout 8], Integration, Special Senses, Autonomics) -- Nov. 14
key (1-80) key (81-160) key (161-240)
Laboratory practical -- tests will run on the hour, all day on Thursday 11/24. At least one section of the test will be available Wed. night -- Nov. 23
Test 5 (Endocrine System) -- Nov. 30
Final comprehensive exam -- Dec. 7, 8:00 - 11:00am (I'll be there with the test about 7:15 for those of you who like an early start). The test will ABSOLUTELY be over at 11:00. NO EXCEPTIONS! If I walk out the door without your test, you weren't there. I hope everyone understands this.
Part 1 = 43 questions introduction = 9, cells = 9, tissues = 10, integument = 7, bone tissue = 8
Part 2 = 46 questions axial skeleton = 7, appendicular skeleton = 7, articulations = 5, muscle tissue = 20, muscular system = 7
Part 3 = 48 questions nervous tissue = 23, spinal cord = 11, brain = 14
Part 4 = 38 questions spinal nerves and cranial nerves = 5, nervous integration = 9, vision = 12, hearing and equilibrium = 7, autonomics = 5
Part 5 = 25 questions endocrine = 25
WORD DOCUMENTS
Print yourself a copy of the syllabus and keep it in your notebook. Mark on your semester calendar (you do have one, right?) all of the test dates. They aren't carved in stone, but pretty close.
Click on these links below to call up the exams and keys from last fall, and use them as a study tool for this year. I don't repeat questions year to year, but they will provide a great way to diagnose your readiness for an upcoming exam.
In the handouts section you will find all of the handouts that I will be using during the semester. I won't be providing hard copies, so be sure that you have a copy. As for the course objectives and vocabulary lists, get a copy and USE THEM. I don't recommend making flash cards. They are too time consuming and provide little in the way of actual understanding.
In the Study Guides section you will find the Word documents for all of the lecture notes, basically transcriptions of the Toolbook Study guides (see above)
The Histology Review Guides are PowerPoints designed to aid you through the histology labs. They will be a great study tool for the practical exam at the end of the semester.
In the Audiofiles list you will find MP3s of the latest lectures. You should be able to click and play them directly on your computer, or download them to you iPod or other audio device.