PHYS30008: Frontiers in Physiology

1 assignment (20%)
1 Wiki group project (40%)
Exam (40%)

Yes, with screen capture

Various

None, but if you have done Muscle and Exercise Physiology and/or Neurophysiology in Semester 1, or are doing Cardiovascular Health in Semester 2, the past exam questions from those subjects may be helpful.

4/5

None

– introductory lectures. These were not assessed on the assignment or exam.

– These lectures were supposed to be careers lectures, but they didn't end up happening so there were no lectures for the last 2 weeks of semester (woop woop)

Individual assignment

For this assignment, we had to pick 2 lectures from weeks 2-5, each from a different area (muscle, neuro, cardio or techniques) and write 2 summaries on it: one for a lay audience and the other for a scientific audience. This meant we didn't really have to focus on (or even go to...) the other lectures. However, when you submit your assignment for peer review, you will get the assignments of 3 other students to review, and these assignments may not be on the same lectures you focused on. So it might be a good idea to go to/listen to all the lectures so you can give the best possible feedback (and hopefully receive some in return!) The assignment is worth 20% and 5% of this is made up of the marks from submitting the reviews and how helpful people found your comments. I highly recommend doing the peer review as it is an easy 5%! After submitting the final copy of the assignment, we didn't get any helpful feedback: the comments on turnitin seemed to be copied and pasted directly from a marking rubric. However, if you really wanted the feedback, you could probably speak to the coordinators in person.

Wiki

You're pretty much on your own for this project. It's not like a prac subject where you get to check things with a tutor every week, so it's up to your group how you want to approach your topic. You will be given a list of topics to choose from and I would recommend that you do a bit of research before putting in your topic preference because a topic may sound interesting, but there may not be much/useful literature on it.

Another thing I would recommend is to decide on your approach early. We were told that we would have to submit a statement outlining our approach to the topic. This didn't happen and, as my group wasn't particularly organised, this meant we were floundering for several weeks before we finally decided on an approach. Even if you don't end up submitting a statement, I think it would be great to check your approach with the coordinators, just to make sure you're on the right track and that you don't end up going round and round in circles. As with any group project, there are always people who don't pull their weight and others who end up dictating. 10% of the wiki mark goes to a peer rating, where your group members rate you and you rate them on various things like organisation, communication, contribution to the project, etc. This was really good because it means you are marked according to your contribution to the project. Also, knowing that your group will rate you reminds you to be nice during the meetings, no matter how much you want to throw things

Overall, my wiki project wasn't as smooth sailing as I hoped it would be. Some people had really fantastic groups that were organised and did most of the work at the start of the semester rather than leaving things to the last minute, so they definitely had a much better experience than I did.

Exam

The exam was broken up into the 3 sections (muscle, cardio and neuro) and consisted of MCQs and everyone's favourite extended-MCQs. You choose 2 areas for the exam. There were 43 questions for cardio, 57 questions for neuro and 63 questions for muscle. I thought this was a bit weird, because if you did cardio and neuro, you would have less questions to do during the set time than if you did neuro and muscle. (However, don't be fooled by having less questions for cardio, I heard they were pretty hard. Think back to 2nd year phys were there were those questions with options for Increase, Decrease, No Change or Not Enough Info *shudders*) Because the examinable content is only from Weeks 6-10, this means you have 5 lectures for each section (10 in total for the 2 areas you choose) which makes for a light exam revision load.

Final thoughts

While this subject wasn't everyone's cup of tea, I enjoyed it, mainly because I liked the content (which overlapped with muscle and neuro from semester 1) and the light exam load I liked the amount of choice in this subject, however I think this may have been a bit confusing for some, especially at the start of semester when we were having lectures that weren't being assessed and we were all like why are we here?

If you have any questions, please feel free to PM me

– lectures on experimental techniques in physiology (e.g. microscopy, electrophysiology, etc.)

– frontiers lectures on 3 areas: Muscle and Exercise, Cardiovascular, and Neurophysiology.

– these lectures were assessable on the exam. Again, these lectures were split into the 3 areas, with 5 lectures on each area. You can just focus on 2 areas (these will be the areas you do on the exam) which means you only have to go to 2 lectures a week.

3x 1hr lectures per week. Contrary to the handbook, there is no weekly 3hr practical: this is mainly to encourage you to have weekly meetings with your wiki group.

2014, Semester 2

20% written assignment on Week 4 and 5 lectures, 2 tests in Week 11 (40%), Wiki group project (40%)

A rather dry subject that aims to cover several aspects of scientific research in Physiology such as written communication skills, teamwork and collaboration. The first 3 weeks are not assessed in any way and are a total waste of time. Material covered is useless and not worth going to. There are 2 Cardiovascular Health, 2 Muscle & Exercise and 2 Neurophysiology keynote lectures in Weeks 5 and 6. You need to choose 2 different lecture (from different themes) for the assignment. The lectures in Weeks 6-10 are divided into 3 blocks again, 5 CV, 5 ME, 5 NP. There is a test for each of these blocks in Week 11 and you will need to do at least 2 tests. If you choose to do 3, the best 2 will be counted. The 40% Wiki assignment involves getting into groups of 6 and working on a research project that involves reviewing journal articles throughout the semester.
So you may be thinking that it's too easy The first 6 weeks or so is fairly laid back. However, workload starts increasing quickly during the Weeks 6-10 period and you will be pressured to keep up with the material in time for the Week 11 tests. You will find that lectures will be similar to the lectures in Semester 1 (CV Health, M & E Physiology, NeuroPhys), but the pace is much faster i.e. 10 semester 1 lectures crammed into 5 lectures. If you haven't done the CV Health, M & E Physiology, NeuroPhys subjects, you will

Yes, with screen capture etc.

Dr. Sheldon Cooper

None

2 Out of 5

None

Weeks 1-3: 9 optional lectures
Weeks 4-5: At least 2 lectures out of 6
Weeks 6-10: At least 10 out of 15 lectures

2011 Semester 2

H2A