Love Purple, Live Gold, Learn Anatomy - Matthew …matthewjlandry.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/5/6/11569059/kin_2500_-_fall...correctly drew a flowchart of the ... All twelve cranial nerves

Love Purple, Live Gold,

Learn Anatomy

KIN 2500 - Human Anatomy Instructor: Dr. Wanda Hargroder Supplemental Instructor: Matthew Landry Fall 2014 Portfolio

Love Purple, Live Gold, Learn Anatomy 2

About Me Matthew Landry

Classification: Senior (Graduating May 2015)

Major: Nutrition and Food Sciences

Minor: Agriculture

How I Became a Supplemental Instructor:

I took Dr. Wanda Hargroder’s KIN 2500 – Human

Anatomy course in Fall 2012. I wasn’t required to

take the course – I took it purely for fun; however, I

fell in love with the course topics. After receiving a

high A in the course, I was asked by Dr. Hargroder

to be her Supplemental Instructor (SI).

For the past four semesters, I’ve been employed

by the LSU Center for Academic Success as the SI

for KIN 2500 and have assisted over 1,400 students

through the course!


Quick Facts • On average, an anatomy course has about 325-400 students enrolled • About 60% of the students take advantage of the SI review sessions or office

hours. • For the past three semesters, students who attended 4+ sessions during the

semester did an average of an entire letter grade better than students who did not attend an SI session.

What is Supplemental Instruction?

• Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a series of weekly study sessions offered for students enrolled in historically difficult courses.

• SI Leaders are successful students and role models for effective study habits that help guide students in developing study strategies, problem-solving skills, and organizational skills

Responsibilities of a Supplemental Instructor

• Attending all lectures, taking notes, and reading course material

• Preparing handouts with questions/problems to be covered during each SI session

• Planning interactive learning activities that integrate study strategies with course content

• Conducting two SI review sessions per week. With each session lasting an hour and a half (~25 sessions per semester)

• Conducting an exam review session prior to each exam. (7 exam reviews per semester)

• Holding three office hours per week to assist students on a one-on-one basis

• Meeting weekly with the faculty professor • Responding to student questions via email

Supplemental Instruction


Helping Students Succeed and Prepare For the Future

• Human Anatomy is a fast paced course where students learn a large amount of material in a

very short time. As an SI Leader, its important to stay up to speed with the course; however, SI

sessions and SI office hours can be an ideal time to slow down the pace of the course and

check for student comprehension of the course material especially more difficult topics.

• Many students who take KIN 2500 are planning on attending graduate or professional school.

Some students may have taken a version of human anatomy in high school; however, this

course is their first rigorous study of anatomy prior to gross anatomy at a professional school. SI

sessions serve as a way to help students master the course material and prepare them for

future study.

• Unlike many college courses, which have only a couple exams during a semester, human

anatomy has seven exams. As an SI Leader, it’s important to motivate and encourage students

all semester long in preparing and studying ahead of time for exams.

• I structure my SI worksheets as a condensed outline of lecture material. Worksheets include

charts, graphs, and diagrams, which present the material in a method that allows students to

make connections of concepts and condenses the amount of material to study. This method

has been successful in assisting students with not just memorizing the information for the exam,

but also understand the information and be to retain it.

o The structure of the worksheets provides a good study method that students can

implement on their own when they advance to challenging upper level courses like KIN

3514 – Biomechanics or KIN 4751 – Neuromotor Control of Human Movement which rely

heavily on a knowledge learned in KIN 2500.

• I structure my SI figure reviews so that students can practice labeling anatomical figures. This

method allows students to connect textual information with a cadaver figure.

o This study method is also effective in helping students prepare to study cadaver

pictures in several upper level Kinesiology anatomy labs (KIN 3500 – Human Anatomy

Lab, KIN 3519 – Cadaver Prosection, and KIN 4519 – Cadaver Dissection)

Tips for Success


Excerpts from SI Documents SI WORKSHEETS are designed to help students group similar information together to reduce the amount of study material and assist students in comparing and contrasting topics

SI FIGURE REVIEWS are designed to help students label figures and structures that will appear on an exam.

SI EXAM REVIEWS are designed to help give students sample exam questions and assist students with narrowing down the topics.


Best Session Plans Muscles Part I and II

Exam 4, which covers the muscles of the body, is considered as

one of the most difficult exams in KIN 2500. Students are

required to not only be able to identify about 100 muscles in

cadaver figures by also list the action, insertion, origin, and

innervation (AION) of each of those muscles.

GOAL: The overall goal of these sessions is to group muscles into

similar compartments where muscles share similar AIONs, thus

reducing the amount of material to study. This also helps the

information easier to remember long term.

SESSION STRUCTURE: Covering the muscles of the body is best

done over two sessions - one session focusing on muscles of the

axial skeleton and the other with muscles on the appendicular

skeleton. Half of each session is used to complete a worksheet

which groups muscles into groups with similar actions, insertions,

origins, and innervations (AION). The other half of each session is

used to do an activity in which students split up into groups and

practice identifying muscles while competing against other

groups. The activity can be made harder by also asking groups

to list AION on the identified muscle.

WHY IT’S EFFECTIVE: By splitting up the sessions, into worksheet

and a visual/group activity portions you can appeal to various

learning styles.


Top Activities Blood Vessels and Circulation

Specific Steps • For this activity students work in groups of 4-5. Each group is given a ziplock

bag of arteries or veins in a particular area of the body and a poster board.

Groups are tasked with drawing out the arterial or venous flow of blood. After

10 minutes, each group presents their flowchart to the SI session explaining

branching structures and possible differences between sides of the body.

Pictured: Students in one group correctly drew a flowchart of the arterial blood flow from the arch of the aorta through the upper limbs.

Goal • The goal of this activity is help students

correctly identify blood flow throughout the

systemic circulation.

Materials • Poster board, vein and artery cutouts,

marker

Number of Participants • This activity can be easily manipulated

based on the number of students present.


Top Activities Grays Says with Joint Movements

Goal • The goal of this activity, which is a take on

Simon Says, is to familiarize students with

movements of the joints. This activity is

particularly useful with kinesthetic learners.

Materials • List of anatomical movements of the

joints (list of 20 from Tortora textbook)

Number of Participants • No minimum or maximum

Specific Steps • The SI serves as Gray. If Gray says, "Gray

says (anatomical movement)," then

players must preform the motion. But, if

Gray simply says, "anatomical

movement," without first saying "Gray

says," players must not preform the

motion. Those that do are out. Follow

directions and stay in the game for as

long as possible!

Pictured: Students preforming the motions of lateral flexion of the trunk and circumduction of the leg


Top Activities Cranial Nerve Mnemonic Drawing

Goal • The goal of this activity is

allow students to work

together as a class to

creatively devise a cranial

nerve mnemonic drawing

that assists them with

matching cranial nerve

numbers with their functions.

This is an ideal activity for

visual learners.

Pictured is Fall 2014’s version. All twelve cranial nerves are represented, and the

mnemonic resembles a face. For example, the ears of the face are formed by

the number “8” representing the vestibulocochlear (VIII) cranial nerve which

transmits sound and equilibrium information from the inner ear to the brain.

Another example is the shoulders being formed by the number “11” representing

the Accessory (XI) Cranial Nerve which controls neck and shoulder movement.


Final Reflection

How do you feel your have benefited by being an SI Leader? • I feel I’ve greatly benefited from being an SI Leader over the past four semesters.

• It has improved my ability to effectively communicate to large groups.

• I have also benefited from working with such a large number of students each

semester who each have their own unique learning styles. I now have the ability to

communicate a topic in various mediums. • Being an SI Leader has also improved my own personal study skills. When creating

worksheets and exam reviews it required me to condense course material, create

outlines, diagrams, and charts to simplify difficult topics, and think of possible exam

questions. Were you open to trying new things in your sessions or did you stick with the same format each session?

• After being an SI for a couple semesters prior to this one, I think I was able to think of

new, innovate methods of presenting the material this semester during SI sessions.

• This semester, I tried to implement various activities, which allowed students to work

collaboratively with their peers and also helped liven up the material. • I also feel that I was able to develop activities during the sessions that allowed

students to gauge whether or not they comprehended the information presented. • Since the Human Anatomy course has seven exams throughout the semester I was

able to get feedback from students after each exam on what methods assisted their

understanding of the course material and what areas in which I could change for the

next exam.