Students have different thinking styles. The way students think, perceive and remember information, or their preferred approach to using such information to solve problems can be different between students. Different models for learning styles are present. The mostly used is the learning style model by Kolb. Students have preferred learning styles as well as lecturers do. Mine is the analytic approach, but others prefer the learning style involving doing things with the material. Teachers are encouraged to make lectures appealing to all 4 learning styles. Teacher characteristics have a strong impact on the thinking styles they use in teaching. But what .....read more »

You are looking a visual reconstruction (from array-tomography data) of synapses in the mouse somatosensory cortex, the part of the cerebral cortex that is responsive to sensation. Neurons are depicted in green; multicolored dots represent separate synapses. More about this video on Scope Stanford School of Medicine Related posts: Female Academics Pioneers in Science How the brain works while it is improvising Stanford cardiologist answers your questions on YouTube ..read more »

Besides patient care and education, research is also an important part of a med school. Funding and keeping a research department alive in medicine is very complicated. Below are some suggestions from a approach as published in a recent article from the Advances in Health Sciences Education. It's my own interpretation of the suggestions made in this readable and excellent publication by Randy R. Brutkiewicz. Use 1. Research faculty development seminars, or "brown bag lunches" around these topics: Features and use of the ‘‘guide for applying for research grants’’ for new Research Faculty (specific for each institution) Balancing grants and kids How to recruit personnel .....read more »

Impressive story After Claire Roberston lost 30 years of memories to a devastating brain infection, a new device called a Sensecam helps her keep new memories Related posts: Complaints of loss of personal memories after ECT: evidence of a somatoform disorder? Photos that changed the world Forgetting May Be Part of the Process of Remembering – New York Times ..read more »

From the Double Rainbow to the Tro Lo Lo guy, here are the videos that your friends wouldn't stop sending you this year Some also posted at this blog or on Tumblr, enjoy. Related posts: Neuro Images Two remarkable music videos: Babies and Robots The Top 10 Photographs of 2010 ..read more »

Teaching psychopharmacology to med students can be very dull. Often tried ways of teaching this subject were through lectures or in smaller groups during seminars. At the University of Minnesota Medical School they tested the use of gaming compared to the ordinary lectures. The study was conducted during a 6-week psychiatry clerkship of third year medical students. They made 140 multiple choice questions which were evaluated by a senior psychiatry consultant. One hundred and twenty five were selected for the game, 25 questions per subject: selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI's) and modern antidepressants, Tricyclic antidepressants (TCA's) and MAOinhibitors, antipsychotics and .....read more »

A social network song for Facebook and Twitter addicts. Conceived and created by World Wide Wadio (with apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein). Keynote animation by Dave Fey Design. http://www.wadio.com/favoritetweets.html Related posts: Labmeeting Social Network for Scientists Social Media in Health and Medicine: Medlibs Round 2.7 Students use of social media ..read more »

The new edition of this excellent blog carnival is up at Providentia. the best science, medical, and environmental writing on the web Related posts: Scientia Pro Publica #14 is up at Genetic Inference Scientia Pro Publica 24 is up Scientia Pro Publica 39 ..read more »

Dr Shock is utterly biased when it comes to gaming. Especially when Call of Duty is used for research into the topic of possible negative or positive influences of exposure to violent games. This recent research with the action game "Call of Duty" did not support any negative influence of gaming on prosocial behavior or civic engagement. On the contrary this research found some support for increased prosocial behavior and civic engagement in those playing action games especially when their parents were more technically savvy and involved in game play. So all parents should play with their kids, even .....read more »

Hans Rosling's famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport's commentator's style to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before - using augmented reality animation. In this spectacular section of 'The Joy of Stats' he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of .....read more »