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Valerie O'Loughlin, Personal Statement, 612015 PERSONAL STATEMENT Valerie Dean O'Loughlin, Ph.D. I initially was hired by !USM-Bloomington as a non-tenure track Assistant Professor of Anatomy, assigned to teach both medical gross human anatomy and undergraduate anatomy. I was promoted to non-tenure associate professor as I developed an extensive track record in anatomy educational research, directed graduate student research, and became a leader in various anatomy and physiology organizations. In 2010, I was hired in a new position at IUSM Bloomington - that of tenure-eligible Associate Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology. Thus, I now am pursuing both tenure and full professor status with the IU School of Medicine. In the paragraphs below, I summarize my contributions in the areas of teaching, research and service, and discuss how I have become internationally recognized for developing future and current faculty to become teacher-sclto/ars. Please note that while my area of excellence is in teaching, my case illustrates how my teaching, (educational) research and service are all intimately linked. TEACHING-Area of Excellence My area of excellence is teaching for many reasons. I have taught multiple anatomy and health sciences pedagogy classes at the undergraduate, graduate, medical, and postgraduate (professional development) level, and have received consistently excellent teaching evaluations in these courses. I have received many institutional and national awards for teaching excellence. I have been very involved in curriculum development, especially in both the education track in anatomy PhD program, and the integrated curriculum model to be implemented at IUSM in August 2016. My co-authors and I have developed and published two separate and successful internationally-selling textbooks for both undergraduate anatomy and combined undergraduate anatomy& physiology courses. I advise and direct the research of MS and education track in Anatomy PhD students and have seen my mentees become successful as teacher-scholars and anatomy educators. As President of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS), I developed tools as well as professional development courses (taught by me) that facilitate faculty to become more methodical educational researchers and teacher-scholars. Most notably, I have presented and published extensively in the area of education research and have become internationally recognized for these efforts. In all, my in-rank record for teaching includes two educational research grants (totaling over $10,000), 14 presentations on teaching, 3 textbook edition publications, 2 book chapters on teaching, and 10 manuscripts/electronic multimedia/ and abstracts published on teaching. A more detailed description follows. Statement of Teaching Philosophy For the majority of my IU faculty career I have taught two dramatically different courses, Anatomy A2 l 5 (Basic Human Anatomy) and Anatomy A550-551 (Gross Human Anatomy). Anatomy A215 is a large (400+ student) undergraduate course, and this course is required for many pre-nursing, pre-allied health and Public Health majors. The students who enter this classroom have a diverse range of capabilities and prior experience with course materials. In contrast, Anatomy A550-551 is a year-long course for approximately 36 151-year medical students. Virtually all of these students have impressive academic credentials and tend to learn the material well regardless, yet still benefit from good teaching. Both courses share a common thread in that I want to inspire interest and lifelong learning in the subject of anatomy. In order for students to learn the material presented, they must become active participants in the classroom and take responsibility for their own learning. In a large lecture course (like Anatomy A215), students often feel like they can be "anonymous" or perhaps not attend the lecture at all without penalty. One of my goals as a teacher is to increase student engagement in class, whether the class has 30 students or 300. I make the effott of learning as many names as possible of the students, and they frequently are surprised when I call on them by name, or start up a conversation with them in an arena outside of class. On one of my teacher evaluations, a student made this comment: "She gave more personal attention in a class o/250+ than many do with much smaller classes. She consistently made us feel she wanted us to succeed, and that she would go the extra distance to make that happen." In order to help my A2 l 5 students succeed, I have incorporated sh011 learning activities in lecture that allow the students to apply their knowledge and recognize where they may have knowledge "gaps." We review the material as a group, and 1 Valerie 0 'Loughlin, Personal Statement, 612015 thus can clear up misconceptions before we move on to another topic. Students have responded very positively to the learning exercises, both through unsolicited feedback as well as on mid-semester and end-of-year evaluations. I have methodically assessed the effects of using these exercises (and published my results in several peer-reviewed journals), and I have found that both student lecture exam scores and my teacher evaluation scores have risen as a result. In my Gross Human Anatomy (A550-55 l) course, I want students to appreciate the variation in the human body and recognize that anatomy is not merely a course where one "memorizes terms for body parts". I consider it a successful teaching and learning day if I can stimulate discussion and questions about how anatomic structure influences clinical outcomes. One topic of particular difficulty in this class is embryology. In order to help students learn this difficult subject, I have collaborated with graphic artists and prepared embryology animations that students may access on the web. My students have stated that these animations helped them learn the material more easily and efficiently than if they had to rely on just the textbook. I also am helping students around the world, as I regularly receive e-mails from these individuals who state they found my animations on the web and they helped them learn the subject. As one e-mail respondent noted: "]wanted to tell you they [the animations] are simply superb. I understand gut rotation in roughly 20 minutes ofwatching these animations rather than the hours I spent t1)1ing to think through my professor's lecture notes or a text book. " Beginning in Spring 2010, I developed and taught an upper level anatomy course (Anat A480/580: Human Anatomy for Medical Imaging Evaluation). That previous summer I worked with our Campus Instructional Consulting Office and participated in their Course Development Institute. There I was introduced to backwards class design (described in L. Dee Fink's publications) and devised the learning goals and course objectives first, and then followed up with the day-to­ day agendas. This 3-cr course consisted of two weekly lectures and one weekly lab. In this course, I saw first-hand how traditional anatomy exams tested basic knowledge, but it was with the case studies I developed that I saw true learning, collaboration and understanding flourish. Students sometimes worked individually, and sometimes were assigned in groups, to evaluate various medical images and utilize case histories in order to understand potential pathologies and normal anatomy. Had I not developed this course using backwards design, I would not have developed these learning activities to evaluate my course goals and objectives - and both my students and I would have lost out of valuable learning opportunities. In addition, I had my students prepare weekly 'biogs' about their perceptions of their anatomy and medical imaging learning after they worked on a weekly case. This exercise modeled metacognitive strategies for my students, and provided an opportunity for a colleague and me to analyze the blog entries and present our educational research findings at national meetings. In all of my anatomy classes, I try to emphasize that once they understand "the big picture", rote memorization is not necessary. I try to incorporate clinical examples whenever possible, and demonstrate how they will use and apply this information in their future careers. For example, future nurses probably will not have to regurgitate what functions a specific nerve plexus has. However, these nurses will have to interpret clinical symptoms (such as muscle paralysis) and apply this information to determine which group of nerves is damaged. I reinforce this by tailoring both my lectures and my exam questions to mirror the clinical situation, rather than simply asking the student to regurgitate an answer. In recent years I have become involved in preparing graduate students to become future faculty and teacher-scholars. I teach a graduate level course entitled MSC! M620: Pedagogical Methods in Health Sciences. This advanced pedagogy class enrolls about 10-15 graduate students who already have some teaching experience and want to learn more about teaching and learning styles, course instruction and delivery, and be introduced to educational research methods and the scholarship of teaching and learning. M620 has inspired me and challenged me to become a better teacher. As we discuss the importance of active learning and multiple teaching methods, my students stimulate me to reflect on my teaching in my anatomy courses - am I really doing all I can to help my students learn in those classes? Should I be willing to step out of my 'safety circle' and really innovate in those classrooms? These graduate students are junior colleagues in training to me - I see them as peers who help me reflect on my teaching, just as I help them reflect on their teaching. Their questions and discussions reignite the enthusiasm I have for teaching. I love to teach M620, but ultimately my colleagues and I wanted to know ifthe course helped these graduate students progress on the path to become teacher-scholars.

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