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APS Position Statements
On Animals in Teaching
Rationale
By Robert G. Carroll
East Carolina School of Medicine
Chair, APS Education Committee
The 2004 APS Position Statement on the Use of Animals in Teaching evolved following more than two years of discussions within the Council, the Animal Care and Experimentation Committee, the Education Committee, and the Editorial Board of the journal, Advances in Physiology Education. Position statements are, by definition, brief, and typically do not capture the detailed analysis and discussion of the complex issues that they summarize. Therefore, it is important to provide additional information to help orient the reader to the discussion that shaped the position statement. Toward that end, the APS is providing two background information pieces. The first is a historical perspectives review on the use of animals in teaching laboratories by APS Public Affairs Officer, Alice Ra'anan, available in the September 2005 issue of Advances in Physiology Education (2).The second is an educational rationale for the use of animal laboratories in the larger context of student laboratories.
Active learning approaches such as student laboratories are often costly in terms of time and resources.Educators must be able to explain clearly to administrators and to students the benefits obtained from laboratory experiences in the context of the educational goals for the course.The following rationale provides an overview of the benefits and considerations in selecting teaching laboratory activities (as distinct from activities in the lecture hall or in the research laboratory).
Selecting Pedagogy to Promote Learning
Learning is more than the acquisition of facts. Students, particularly in the sciences, need to be able to think critically, to analyze information, and to apply information and solve problems.These skills are characteristics of the higher cognitive domains in the taxonomy proposed by Bloom. Educational research shows clearly that active learning experiences such as student laboratories help develop higher cognitive skills (1). As one APS committee member involved in the development of the position statement characterized this added value as follows: "You think you understand something until you experience it."
Instructional activities involving student-centered laboratories and lessons add important dimensions to the learning process. Laboratory activities allow the instructor to include a higher percentage of learning styles amongst students and thereby provide a much more meaningful and successful learning experience. A wealth of reports and research summaries over the past 20 years emphasize the importance of laboratory-based experiences in the development of both science content understanding and science process skills (3, 4, 5, 6, 7). The National Research Council's Commission on Life Sciences pointed out that, in biology, laboratory investigations serve crucial functions, including:
- Challenging students' beliefs about the natural world and leading them to learn how to present scientific concepts accurately in their own words;
- Enabling students to generate knowledge directly from natural phenomena and learning how such knowledge can become reliable knowledge;
- Developing deep understanding of organisms and their environments through hands-on experience;
- Helping students to learn about precision and accuracy in observations, measurement, record-keeping, and inferring as well as developing skills in problem-solving; and
- Building student skills in using technology in the quest for new knowledge (3, p.35).
Therefore, life science educators are well-justified in seeking to enrich the learning experiences of their students through laboratory exercises, despite the increased costs and preparation of laboratory-based lessons.As stated in How People Learn, "The expense of the laboratories is justified by the qualitatively different experience made possible when the boundaries of an idea can be tested or worked with in a laboratory or field-based setting" (8).
Diverse Lab Experiences Enrich the Curriculum
Effective science teaching requires a diversity of strategies and approaches (1). Diversifying the types of learning experiences and even the types of laboratory experiences in a course helps engage a larger number of students. Research has clearly shown that:
- Students exhibit a variety of learning styles and characteristics;
- Their preferences for learning styles can range from mild to strong
- Their cognitive preferences can affect their performance in different subject areas; and
- Students whose learning style is complementary to the instructor's teaching style often receive higher grades (9).
The three most common characterizations of learning styles are: 1) visual, auditory, read/write, and kinesthetic (VARK) (12) Carl Jung and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (BMTI) (11), and 3) Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences (10). Despite their differences in measurement methods, each of these characterizations has demonstrated the importance of creating an environment rich with different types of learning experiences.
What types of laboratory-based experiences make positive contributions to student learning? The majority of life science laboratory-based experiences can be grouped into those not involving living tissue (simulations, physical models, preserved specimen tissue) and those that do involve living tissue (human and animal subjects, plants, and tissue samples). As with all educational strategies, there are advantages and disadvantages associated with each approach. It is important to realize that this is not an "either-or" decision. Some educational goals are best accomplished by inanimate laboratories, others by the study of living systems. Some of the considerations that instructors may want to consider are listed below for a variety laboratory options.
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