Drs. Michelle French and Helen Miliotis honoured at the American Physiology Summit for Education Research
Congratulations to Drs. Michelle French and Helen Miliotis whose work was honoured at the American Physiology Summit as an Abstract of Distinction, among the top 10 posters in the Teaching category.
The Summit took place in Long Beach, California at the end of April with over 3000 attendees. The conference was unique in that it brought together physiology and education researchers. “It was nice to have everyone under the same umbrella who’s interested in physiology as a whole,” Dr. Miliotis said.
Representing education research at the conference, Drs. French and Miliotis’ award-winning abstract – co-written with Drs. Michelle Arnot, Rebecca Laposa, and Stavroula Andreopoulos – was entitled “Embedding design thinking, career planning and teamwork into the curriculum better prepares Life Science students for research and alternate science careers.”
The work describes findings from a relatively new course, Research Readiness and Advancing Biomedical Discoveries, that has been enthusiastically received by student participants. The course was created and is team taught by the above instructors in a collaboration between the Departments of Physiology, Biochemistry, and Pharmacology & Toxicology. “We want to better prepare students for their next steps by reinforcing core competencies such as teamwork, critical thinking, design thinking, and scientific writing at the undergraduate level,” Dr. Miliotis explained. “We built on Dr. French’s work on what professional skills physiology majors should have upon graduation.”
Dr. French, who also gave an oral presentation at the Summit, has published several papers on the subject of core competencies for physiologists. Most recently, “Development of the Physiology Professional Skills Curriculum Mapping Tool (PS-MAP)” was published In Advances in Physiology Education and describes a tool that enables physiology program educators to map professional skills and core competencies across their curricula.
“It has been a pleasure to work with such a dedicated teaching team with both overlapping and unique expertise,” said Dr. French. “I think that the combination of science, skill development and career planning makes this course unique and better prepares students for future studies/careers.
The Department is thrilled that this ground-breaking work is getting the international recognition it deserves, and putting the University of Toronto’s Department of Physiology on the map as a trail-blazer in preparing their students for future careers in science.
