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Writer's pictureEngineering Pivot
Jul 31, 20243 min read

Abstracting Learning Methodologies from Systems Physiology

By Elijah Powell




Keywords: Systems Physiology, Bloom’s Taxonomy, Encoding, Higher Order learning, Lower Order learning, Integrated knowledge scheme, interleaving



Abstract


Systems Physiology is a highly integrated field, that entails the evaluation and analysis levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Systems Physiology focuses on building computational and mathematical models of complex biological systems. These models have primarily helped medical trainees by providing a deeper understanding of physiology and pathophysiology. The goal of this paper is to discuss how an understanding of systems physiology can help students outside of the medical field abstract study methodologies



Why is Systems Physiology important?


Systems physiology has a blanket definition that describes various mathematical and computational models that deepen our understanding of physiology. These models are created through rigorous experimentation and theoretical methods. In biomedical engineering programs across the globe, a course that discusses systems physiology is usually standardized. It is advantageous to pay special attention to the concepts in these courses because the information learned will be largely transferrable and transmutable. The declarative knowledge gained from a theoretical understanding of the material is directly proportional to the ability to retrieve that information. This process of gaining deep levels of declarative understanding is known as Encoding in psychology. Encoding is the multifaceted process responsible for deciphering information.



Experimentation; An application of information


Building a theoretical understanding and utilizing experimental methodologies causes students to evaluate topics and figure out how the real-world applications for them. trying to apply information after you learn is a form of higher-order thinking that results in improved memory and recall abilities. Practically students can find applications within their own lives. This leads to students finding the relevance of a topic. Bloom’s taxonomy, a famous educational model favors application as one of the 6 fundamental parts of complete conceptual understanding. The pillars of Bloom’s taxonomy include Creation, Evaluation, Analysis, Applying, Understanding, and memorization. The top four pillars can be subcategorized as higher-order learning methods and the bottom two as lower-order methods.



The Importance of Bloom’s Taxonomy


Although both higher and lower-order learning are required for a comprehensive understanding it is often detrimental to student success, when they use only lower-order methods such as flashcards, rereading notes, certain variations of “blurting”, etc. It can also be confusing if a student tries to gain a lower-order understanding before approaching a higher-order foundation because information is decontextualized.



Contextualized/Importance-based Chunks


We must contextualize information because of our natural tendency to chunk/group information based on similarities and differences. Often when we naturally chunk information, however, it is based on metrics that are completely arbitrary to how it might need to be recalled in an exam for example. It isn’t enough that we know that information is related we have to understand why at a deeper level, when this analysis of information is followed by an evaluation of relevant relationships, the quality of these chunks is directly proportional to the ability to recall information. Experimentation helps students iterate through these different chunk structures allowing them to represent the most relevant, important, and logical chunk. For example, in a biology class, the chunk of neurobiology may contain the Prefrontal cortex, Amygdala, Hippocampus, various subcortical structures etc but this is different to how a student may chunk it in a psychology class, in this context, it might be more advantageous to substitute “neurobiology” with “learning” causing you to get rid of irrelevant neurobiological structures for the sake of recall. Even if you don’t switch the chunk It’s worth evaluating both because



Interleaving


Interleaving is another way a student can experiment! Interleaving is a learning methodology where you study different topics, resulting in a more integrated knowledge scheme of the material. This is because a more holistic understanding of all the topics causes you to find more relationships and arrive at importance-based chunks faster. You can view different perspectives, applications, methodologies, etc. for topics that you predict are already heavily related, to gain a more conceptually consistent idea of what certain learning objectives entail.



Conclusion


Often courses can help you develop healthy study strategies. Systems Physiology is unique because it has laid the foundation to effectively learn even the most conceptually dense information. Iterating your understanding of declarative information through testing and a more holistic understanding has been shown to improve retention by helping bypass the limitations of working memory by 29%. Creating a logical chunk structure and challenging that is instrumental to managing dense topics effectively.



 

References


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