PHYS30010: ADVANCED HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY

The CAL was a weekly 10 MCQ quiz, that covered the lecture content of that week, it was open for five days, untimed, open notes and open collaboration (yes you can collaborate in this subject completely, including the final exam)
The challenge question was a weekly assignment-based question that required a short answer response of ~300 words that tested students abilities to apply their knowledge, no feedback is given to your individual response but an cohort feedback is provided. Averages ranged in the ~70%.
The final exam was interesting, it was essentially 10 challenge questions, that covered all lectures taught in the subject. No practice exam is provided, but there were workbook questions, which is what the questions in the exam were based of. Two of the exam questions were identical to workbooks questions, and the rest required to content of those workbook questions but were adapted to be more of a clinical scenario. The exam was available for 24 hours but was suggested to be completed in 2 hours. This is a lie, majority of us took at least 8 hours to finish the 100-mark exam. This was because of the depth required in the questions, and ensuring your answer was simultaneously concise and detailed. The questions were fair, some were harder than others, but you have 24 hours to devour it. I assume the exam was marked relatively harshly considering it was only worth 40%. My advice for the exam is to answer all the workbook questions in sufficient detail and see if you can think of how a clinical example may arise from the provided questions.

Overall, this subject was coordinated well, and the content was interesting and the assessment was rewarding and provided students with ability to be flexible in their learning due to the low-stake final exam. There wasn’t much support for student help which could have been improved.

This is a new subject, and is now the new major core subject for the Physiology degree, but can be taken by other majors such as (HSF).
Overall, this subject was intellectually stimulating, each week had a new topic which helped keep things fresh. Some topics were covered better, than others but otherwise was a good subject. The weekly challenge questions varied in difficulty but were a good task in assessing students knowledge.
Lectures:
2 x 1 hour lectures, means there is less content, than a usual science subject, which was nice. However, considering there is a weekly assignment question, it makes sense for there to be less lecture content. Lectures in third year focus on specific topics, that dig deeper from second year physiology. For example, in week 3 the theme is ‘renal function’ the lecture covered was haemorrhage and shock, so we are covering niche topics rather than a general overview which was presented in second year.
Andrew’s lectures were standard, not overwhelming difficult however his challenge had little relevance to his lectures and was the first and most demanding question. Typically challenge questions were not expected to have further research (on diving adapatations) BEYOND lecture content but his did, his CAL was easy expect for one question, which again was not covered in detail in the lectures.
Cardiac function delivered by Lea, covered the cardiac action potential and were delivered as small mini videos. I liked the content, and found it easy to understand, however some peers found her monotone, but she explains concepts with easy-to-read diagrams which was great. Her challenge question was arguably the easiest of the course, and was comparing two disease she covers when discussing malfunctions in the cardiac action potential)
Charles takes us for renal function and focuses more on disease and pathogenesis, his workshop was helpful for the exam. His challenge question was a challenging clinical scenario that required a diagnosis, justification, and explanation of symptoms and why a certain treatment may be effective.
Yossi covers lectures on blood, which was presented as interactive mini lectures, his slides were bare and he could unclear at times. His lecturing style was not appreciated by the cohort, since I felt his long explanations were unclear and incoherent. His challenge question was fair.
Angelina covers respiratory physiology and again focuses on what causes respiration goes wrong, her lectures were wells structured and this was reflected in the CAL and challenge question, which was again another clinical scenario.
Digestion… let’s just say the lectures weren’t that great. Slides were detailed which was good, but the presentation of the lectures were unengaging. However, what made it worse was the workshop! The workshop normally covers the CAL, the challenge question and student’s questions (if time permits). However, this workshop was so disorganised I left halfway because it was incomprehensible. Unsurprisingly, digestion was essentially omitted in the final exam (lol).
Immunity was a repeat of second year immunity and didn’t focus on pathophysiology which was a bit sad, If you have done MCB, the immunity series will be very light for you.
Metabolism and muscle were pretty straight forward and were covered well.

Yes, with screen capture- Zoom lectures

A quick guide to language and argument analysis
HHD sample questions HHD 2019 Comprehensive examiner report analysis

No (new subject) but workbook questions are provided that were based of the exam

3.5 of 5

2nd year physiology textbooks might be helpful

2 x 1 hour lectures, 1 x 1 hour workshop (however is in a lecture setting, NOT LIKE A TUTORIAL, but more interactive than a lecture)

2021, Semester (completely online)

H1 (88)