The Great Organ System Debates

Facilitating the learning of physiology by allied health majors who lack foundational coursework in biology and chemistry presents unique pedagogical challenges. By focusing on the strengths of this group of learners (team skills, interest in applied physiology), a new mechanism for conveying the primary interconnection and synergism of the body's organ systems was developed: the Great Organ Systems Debates. After learning sequentially about the primary organ systems, the Debates are a culminating, integrative experience, where students "debate" the relative importance of their system in different situations. Used and refined over several years, it is an engaging, interactive, and effective learning tool that could be adapted to almost any level of instruction.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Which organ system is "most important" when running a marathon? To answer this question, different groups of students were assigned different organ systems to see who could come up with the best argument.