Physiology applied to everyday: the practice of professional contextualization of physiology concepts as a way of facilitating learning.

THE TEACHING OF PHYSIOLOGY is indispensable in many biological and health disciplines. Physiology is one of the major components of the curriculum in a number of life science courses, including the study of life, cells, tissues, and organisms as well as their functions (7). A bigger challenge for physiology teachers is to make physiological concepts attractive to students, particularly since students of different majors are often assigned to the same class (1). The health professional, especially, needs a foundation of contextualized learning to make learning more meaningful to them, without losing quality. This foundation depends on student-centered teaching methods that assist the student in building on previous learning to prepare to be a knowledgeable future health professional. Furthermore, since physiology is sometimes a difficult course, physiology teachers need to be conscious that different teaching-learning strategies are preferable for helping different students learn (3). United States National Science Education Standards encourages teachers to assume the roles of facilitators of student learning instead of simply imparters of knowledge. Teachers/ facilitators help students become active in their learning by developing their own questions, drawing on their own experiences, analyzing and interpreting data, and drawing their own conclusions (6). However, to be successful with this approach, teachers need to design learning experiences in which scientific investigation is the norm and not the exception (6). Thus, it is not possible to improve the learning of a majority of students without improving learning about learning for a majority of teachers (4). To understand physiology completely, students need to acquire knowledge and competencies to be able to interpret complicated problems and cases (9). Thus, pedagogies that incorporate both personal and professional aspects of the physiological concepts should improve student-teacher interactions and build a strong foundation for student learning. Traditionally, physiology has been taught as a classroom course, with a mixture of lecture and laboratory experiences to introduce concepts (2). The objective of this report is to reflect on the experience of enhancing physiology teaching with seminars to contextualize the concepts of physiology into everyday health professional practice.