PHY2032: Endocrine Control Systems

• 10 quizzes during workshops, completed in your assigned group for the semester, accounting for 1% each quiz. All the answers are in the lecture modules to be completed before the workshops, so there are no curveballs, total of 10%
• 2 x Lab Assessments (one was simply writing an abstract and interpreting data, one was a traditional report), total of 20%
• Group infographic on a topic given in Week 1, accounting for 10%
• SAQ test. You're given a choice of two topics, each of which has several SAQ questions from previous exams. Worth 5%.
• Multimedia presentation. You're given a hormone, which may not be covered in a lecture at all, and have to complete some research and create a video presentation as if you are a scientist presenting a hormone they have discovered or a teacher delivering it a classroom. This is the assessment where the textbook was helpful. Worth 15%.
• Exam. 2h10m (including reading time). 30 MCQ questions and 10 possible SAQ questions, of which you get to choose 6 to do. Worth 40%.

• This was by far the best unit I've completed so far. While some of the content itself wasn't my favourite thing in the world, the style of lecture presentation and the workshops were always engaging. Despite the lockdown causing the lessons to change from IRL to online at such short notice, the engagement continued on Zoom, where workshops had an emphasis on interactive activities to ensure nobody drifted to sleep — there was a lot of humour involved which was a fun addition too. Some of the feedback took a while to get back to us for assessments but it was always detailed and fair. All lecturers and TAs were wonderful and happy to help, even for the most basic of questions.

The content is roughly divided into sections on Endocrinology, Reproduction, Digestion, and Metabolism.

In Week 1, you are assigned into a group of about six people in your workshop. You'll work together every week to complete the quizzes and workshop activities, in addition to the infographic assessment.

Some of the workshop activities include: completing a choose-your-own-adventure-story about thyroid hormones, solving a murder mystery involving new weight loss technologies, and completing a time-trialed puzzle adventure against other groups where the answers are hidden in activities of the female reproductive system.

• A/Prof Craig Harrison (covers most of the content)
• A/Prof Julia Choate (covering gut physiology)
• Dr Belinda Henry (covering energy balance, food intake, body weight)

• No. However you are given SAQ worksheets and a few hundred MCQ questions, all of which are in the exam style.

• 5/5

• Prerecorded lectures released at the start of every week

• The provided resources are very good, and you will have no need for the textbook to understand the content. However the recommended textbook, Vander's Human Physiology 15E is helpful for the presentation assignment and further reading.

• 3 labs
• Workshop every week other than weeks where there is a lab
• 4-10 mini-lectures per week, depending on the modules for the week. They probably average about 8 minutes each, can be more or less, and are very dense so there's little superfluous information. They're very easy to follow along

• 2021, Semester 2

• HD

(Outline the various assessments which make up the subject and how much each counts for)
- 10x 1% group MCQ tests (IFATS) during workshops (easy to get full marks or high 90s as you have a whole group and questions are fine if you've done the content).
- 10% Infographic in a group. With the group you work with in workshops the whole sem so need to make a good impression.
- 10% Stress report. Title and abstract based on a lab.
- 15% Hormone multimedia presentation. 6 min video providing info on a hormone (not chosen).
- 10% Neuronal control of gastrointestinal smooth muscle report. Based on a lab. Creating a figure legend and title for a graph, then answering questions.
- 5% SAQ assessment. Chose from 1 of 2 questions to answer under exam conditions (timed 20mins and open book). Very useful practice for the exam as it's the same question style.
- 40% end of sem exam. 2h 10mins. 30MCQs & 6 SAQs. (10 SAQs are given but only answer 6 (spread on each topic)). Open book using a lockdown browser.

Give your overall opinion of the subject, lecturers, assessment etc. and a recommendation, plus anything else which you feel is relevant.
-Lecturers went above and beyond what most do. They put so much effort into creating workshops what were both fun and very useful. Each workshop contains some sort of video Mike and Craig are acting in and you need to apply your knowledge and answer questions as the storyline progresses, definitely makes it fun. Probably the most useful workshops i've had because they require you to work in the same group over the weeks so there's no wasting time being awkward and worried about others judging you at the start of each class. Also the questions you need to work on as a group are very useful for actually consolidating the knowledge and similar to the exam style questions.
-Lecturers were very organised and responsive on the forums to student questions and also understanding about adapting assignments to what is achievable without the in person lab classes. You could tell they put in a lot of work to transition from in person to online teaching.
-Because each 1% IFAT test is done in your workshop group, it forces you to keep up to date with the weekly content because you don't want your group to dislike you, which I found very useful so never fell behind.
-The weekly lecture videos are very content heavy. I found each 10 min video took around 40mins to 1h to write notes for because everything mentioned is so concise and important. Helps a lot to draw out all the diagrams of the anatomy and flowcharts for the processes, useful when you need to recall or refer to them in the workshops.
-4 topics covered: Endocrinology (wks 1-4), Reproduction (wks 5-7), Digestion (wks 8-9), Metabolism (wks 10-11).
-Cohort averages for assignments ranged from mid to high 70s, so felt like if you write according to assessment criteria you can get a decent mark.
-The assignment feedback was extremely detailed and useful. Also didn't feel like generic feedback.
-Overall, highly recommend doing this unit not only because of the interesting content but because of how well run it was and how good the lecturers were.

A/Prof Craig Harrison
Dr Mike Leung
A/Prof Julia Choate
Dr Belinda Henry

Given 100+ practice MCQ questions on moodle, as well as 8 SAQs with videos explaining answers (+ some more SAQ practice without answers).

5 out of 5 (best unit i've ever done!)

Yes. (But workshops are not recorded.)

"Vander's Human Physiology" was recommended reading, however I didn't use it and don't think it is necessary as the lectures are very dense and contain all the info you need.

- 2h workshops weekly (except 3 weeks are 3h labs). Compulsory to attend or will miss 1% MCQ assessment.
- (1) to 2 online modules per week, each module contains ~30mins of lecture videos and questions. (takes ~6h to learn each week of content)

2021

will update

Four online Moodle tests - 5% each (20%)
Two prac reports - 10% and 15% respectively (25%)
One prac test - 5%
One research oral presentation - 10%
1 final exam - 40%

This unit is largely divided into five sections:

is about what happens in our bodies from the moment we see food to the moment we finally remove the waste products. The general anatomy and structure of the digestive system (such as the composition of the GI tract walls) is discussed, as well as the enteric nervous system - almost like a 'second brain' in the gut. We also learnt about how digestion and absorption work in the stomach, small intestine and large intestine, and the different kinds of contractions of the gut, to push the food along. There was also a bit about how activity in one part of the gut can alter the behaviour of other parts of the gut.

is about the various parts of the body that make up the endocrine system, how endocrine communication works, what types of hormones there are and what they do. The pancreas, hypothalamus, pituitary gland, adrenal gland and thyroid gland are discussed in addition to what hormones they secrete/are affected by, and their modes/patterns of secretion as well as their effects (for example, growth hormone, adrenaline, thyroid stimulating hormone and many more). An interesting lecture was spent on looking through an old scientific paper on the link between a hormone from the hypothalamus and one from the pituitary gland, and drawing conclusions from it.

is about how the cardiovascular, respiratory and muscle systems work together to allow the body to meet the demands of exercise. As not everyone is familiar with all three systems from earlier units, some general physiology lectures are given to ensure everyone is up to speed, and then concepts such as oxygen debt, methods of generating energy during exercise, how different nutrients are used in different proportions, the recovery process and adaptations to exercise are covered.

This was a reasonable unit. While there was a fair bit of content to learn, the lecturers made a good effort to go through it in a logical order, which made learning things a bit easier, and a bit more fun. The prac work is done in groups (as usual), but what happens this time is that all members of a group will work together to write up a lab report of around 2000 words or so. There is some peer feedback for this, but usually people put in a decent effort to get it done, since all members of the group get the same mark (assuming no great anomalies in the peer feedback form).

One fun thing this semester was a group research project. Basically, at the start of semester, you get into a group of 4-6 people, and pick a topic that is somewhat related to the stuff you cover in lectures. Then over the next 5 weeks, you go and look up papers on the topic, and eventually give a 10 minute group presentation to everyone in your lab session, and field questions from lecturers, guests and students.

In terms of assessment, the online tests aren't of an impossible difficulty (apparently the average mark is around 80-85% across the four), and sitting down with your lecture notes to do them really helps.

The lab reports were also OK, they're the standard introduction-methods-results-discussion-conclusion type of thing. The main hurdle (for me at least) were the statistical tests - you have to do tests on the data you receive, to see if any of it is different enough within certain confidence intervals, and you do it on the physiology lab's preferred software, which isn't the easiest to navigate. Nevertheless, you do get sheets that explain how to run and interpret the tests.

The final exam is divided into 3 sections: multiple choice (based only on the Exercise part of the course, because we didn't get an online test in the semester for it), short answer (answering a number of short answer questions that can range from labelling/drawing a diagram to standard answering), and essay questions.

Basically, for the short answer and essay questions, you get a bunch of options, from which you pick a few. This helps in revision, because if you really want to, you can skip revising your weakest area, since you don't have to write on it. Apparently the essays are the worst-performing area for most students, Rick said "Tell us a story. Even if you don't get all the facts right, we would like you to tell us a story". So make a good effort to structure your essay, and probably avoid dot points unless you're really running out of time. The exam was reasonable, I was just a bit time pressured (from writing too much in my essays), but it wasn't a particularly large deal.

All in all, this was a nice physiology unit.

Endocrinology: Yvonne Hodgson
Digestion: Rick Lang
Metabolism: Aneta Stefanidis and Sarah Lockie
Reproduction: Renea Taylor
Exercise: Wayne Sturrock and Farshad Mansouri

is about how the body actually uses and stores the nutrients we get from our food, as well as the many pathways by which different stores of energy are converted into each other, and also how different hormones can affect this. We also consider the various ways in which energy can be expended, such as through heat production and exercise. We look at the brain, and how it controls our appetite in response to our current body energy stores and condition. Finally, we look at disorders of metabolism, how these are defined, how we test for them and how we can treat them.

The structure of this unit has changed a bit from when I did it in Semester 2, 2013. Some parts of the course (such as the exercise physiology bit) are probably not in this unit any more, as there has been a reshuffle of the 2nd year physiology units and their content. For information about the other second year physiology units in general (and what you need to take to complete a minor/major in physiology etc.), a place to start is here.

No, but many practice questions put up on Moodle and in the final lecture.

4/5

Yes, with/screen capture.

is about the male and female reproductive system anatomy, the ovarian and uterine cycles, how eggs and sperm are formed, what happens before, during and after fertilisation, the hormonal changes and triggers associated with puberty, and finally what happens during pregnancy, in order to ensure that the fetus can survive. There was also a bit at the end about methods used in research to study the genes involved in reproduction and the survival of the embryo.

E. P. Widmaier, H. Raff, K. T. Strang, Vander's Human Physiology - the mechanisms of body function (12ed. in Sem 2, 2013)

Not compulsory to buy. Did not use much during semester.

3 x 1 hour lectures per week
1 x 3 hour lab per week (there were 6 weeks of labs when I did it, 4 of which were genuine lab sessions, 1 intro lab and 1 speech presentation).

Semester 2, 2013

Unknown at this point.