Monthly Archives: February 2021

Christian Eijkman: Fighting Beriberi

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Berberi disease was the scourge of settlers sent to Asia by the Dutch East India Company. The mysterious illness led to general fatigue, inability to eat, heart weakness, paralysis, and death. Beriberi got its name from the locals and is translated as “cannot.”

At first, the Dutch East India Company contacted Robert Koch, the physician who did groundbreaking work on anthrax, to come to Asia and help. Koch claimed he was too busy and recommended his former student Christian Eijkman (1858-1930) to help with this problem.

Enter Eijkman

Eijkman, who was Dutch, was a part of a medical team that went to Java (Indonesia) to battle with beriberi in 1886. At this time, Germ theory was all the rage in the medical world, and many people thought that germs cause all disease. Eijkman came to Java with his assumption that there was some sort of microbe that was making everyone sick. Success would involve finding the microbe and eliminating it.

As Eijkman began to work, he noticed that the hospitals had clean beds and good food, with beriberi as a significant problem. Outside the hospital, the locals lived in squalid conditions with inadequate nutrition but no beriberi. Eijkman began to wonder what was the difference.

Eijkman looked at the water, blood samples, and even more closely at the food. After some time, the other doctors on the medical team with him left out of discouragement. Eijkman stayed behind. Money was becoming a problem, and he knew he could not stay much longer.

Enter the Chickens

Eijkman decided to conduct an experiment in which he would take blood from a beriberi patient and inject it into a chicken. Eijkman fully expected the chicken to develop the disease. However, the chicken did not get sick, to Eijkman’s surprise as this contradicted Germ theory. This led Eijkam to the conclusion that germs do not cause beriberi.

However, with time the chickens did actually get sick. Yet they also recovered, which furthered confuses, Eijkman. Eijkman asked the cook what did he feed the chickens. The cook replied that he usually feed them brown rice. During the week that the chickens were sick, he used white rice because all the brown was going. One week later, he switched back to brown rice, and that was when the chickens recovered.

Eijkman confirmed this observation with additional experiments. He also found that the locals ate brown rice while the settlers ate white rice. Something in the brown rice protected a person from beriberi that was lost when the rice was processed to be white.

Enter the Rejection

When Eijkman shared his results with the hospital, the leadership thought it was ridiculous. Everyone was convinced that only germs caused disease and not diet. Eijkman’s breakthrough was ignored for years before US doctors tried it in the Philippines with great success.

Further research found that the husk of rice contains a vitamin called thiamine. This vitamin was inadvertently removed when the rice was processed. Soon it was found that other diseases are caused by a lack of vital minerals and nutrients such as goiter,

Conclusion

For his hard work and persistence, Eijkman won the Nobel Prize in medicine. When he first made his discovery, it was mocked, but decades later, he received the highest award possible in his field.

Equity Theory and the Classroom

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Equity theory essential tries to explain how people view their effort versus what they received in return for their effort. A more straightforward way to state this is that people monitor whether they think their situation is “fair.” Students, especially children, are positively obsessed with fairness

In equity theory, inputs are anything that person believes they are contributing to further the organization. It could be experience, performance, education, time, etc. For children, many of the examples listed so far may not be applicable. For students, inputs might be appropriate behavior, completing assignments, staying on task, etc.

Inputs & Outputs

Outputs in equity theory can involve pay, working conditions, job status, achievement, etc. Outcomes are essentially what an individual thinks they are getting back from the organization in return for the inputs. Outcomes for children can be such things as special privileges, good grades, praise, etc.

According to equity theory, what happens over time is that people compare the inputs to the outputs over time to see if they are balanced and fair. If they are people are satisfied, if not there could be problems. How we decide what is reasonable is by comparing our input to output ratio with someone else’s. These people are called referent others.

Returning to the classroom, children determine what is fair not so much by some external standard but by how they are treated when looking at how others are treated. If one student does not have to do homework and another does, the student who has to complete the task can only say it’s not fair compared to the student who did not get the assignment. If both were required to do homework, they would need a different argument than comparing themselves to each other.

The Results of Comparing

Three situations can result from the comparison of one’s self to others according to equity theory. When people believe the input to output is fair, it is called a state of equity. When a person is convinced that their inputs are less than the outputs when comparing, this is called over-reward equity. When the inputs are more than the outputs, this is an example of under-reward equity.

If people feel over-rewarded, they seldom complain or show concern for this. This is similar to what can be seen in children who are favored in one way or another. An exception to this may be if the over-rewarding causes social tension. Then some people and many children may sacrifice the excess reward to regain harmony and group acceptance.

In terms of under-reward, people tend to become frustrated and focused on the injustice of their situation. One practical solution is a passive-aggressive one and involves reducing the inputs. If working long hours is not being rewarded, a person can reduce their hours to the minimum. By doing this, they can gain time that was not reaping any additional salary or praise. Children will also work less if they are not convinced it will make a difference in their academic performance.

However, one common problem people had when they compared themselves to others is that they tend to overrate their performance and underrate their peers’ performance. This means that a large amount of frustration people have is their misperception of the situation. Therefore, it may not always be fair to address another person’s or student’s sense of unfairness.

Points for the Classroom

There are many ways a teacher can be fair or unfair. However, two common problems are marking assignments and classroom management. If these two teaching duties are not done in a fair and balanced way, there could be push-back from the students in terms of their views of equity.

Teachers have to be careful about how they approach marking or grading. Tests that are considered too hard can lead to problems of under-reward. Subjective assignments, such as essays that need grading, require tools such as rubrics to increase the consistency of the marks.

Policies must also be consistently enforced. If there is a penalty for late assignments, it must be applied every time and not based on one’s emotions or situation. It only takes one exception to encourage everyone to demand the same. Otherwise, it is not fair. When it is necessary to discipline students, the penalty must fit the crime regardless of who was involved. In general, when exceptions are made, it can lead to problems, and when inconsistency reigns supreme, it can lead to the same frustration as found in under-reward.

Conclusion

Being fair is an expectation of teaching but is not always easy. Students, like employees, want to work in an environment that is considered fair. Therefore, teachers need to be aware of the consequences of unfairness and how it may manifest itself in the classroom.

Independent Learning through Asynchronous Instruction

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The current state of education has provided educators with an opportunity to teach in a whole new way. Most teachers have decided to teach remotely, which involves primarily teaching through a video conferencing tool such as skype. However, some teachers have chosen to be a little more adventurous and use asynchronous learning through prerecorded videos, which allows students to learn independently.

This post will go over the pros and cons of using prerecorded videos and tips for how to be successful when using this approach.

Pros

There are several benefits to going entirely into e-learning with prerecorded videos. The most substantial benefit, and this post’s theme, is the benefit of students becoming totally independent learners. When students are expected to log in, watch videos, and complete assignments without supervision, it provides them with an experience of being almost totally in charge of their learning. For many students, this is an unusual experience. Most students are used to the teacher being right there to share content, motivate, and provide instantaneous informal feedback. As such, students cannot learn on their own in many situations.

For many teachers, education aims to develop students who can learn independently without the teacher after their students. People are looking for individuals who can acquire information and judge its validity based on their thought processes. Developing these skills needs to be guided, but there is also a benefit to a sink and swim experience.

A second significant benefit of prerecorded videos is the avoidance of zoom fatigue. Remote learning has its own set of challenges and among them is how draining the experience can be. When students are expected to sit through a live lecture online, it is hard to stay focused. We have all fallen to the temptation of checking emails, surfing the web, or even merely logging in and walking away during online meetings or video conferencing.

With prerecorded videos, this is no longer a problem. Students watch 10-15 minutes worth of videos, complete some activity and move to the next video. If they want a break, they can take it whenever they wish in-between videos or even during the videos by hitting the pause button.

A final benefit of prerecorded videos is the engagement. When making prerecorded videos, it is often possible to insert questions during the video that the student has to answer. Having to answer these simple questions forces a student to pay attention and be engaged. In a regular classroom, a teacher might ask one student a question while everyone else is disengaged. With prerecorded videos, everyone is asked the question and responds appropriately to earn the points they want for their grade.

Cons

There are naturally some drawbacks to an entirely asynchronous experience. The biggest problem may be student frustration. Most students have never had such an experience, as mentioned earlier. This can lead to a shock experience for students who are new to this. They may conclude that the teacher is not doing their job or does not care etc. However, when the experience is over and everything is explained, students are often more supported by this type of learning when they see the skills they have developed.

A common problem for the teacher is not having a strong sense of how the students are doing. Of course, the teacher marks assignments, but something is unnerving of not answer questions directly or seeing that look of confusion on a student’s face when they do not understand. Many teachers cannot tolerate this and will use videoconferencing just to be in “touch” with the students. This is not wrong, but a unique opportunity for developing autonomy is missed in such a situation.

Another problem is that students take longer to do everything when they have to do it themselves. This leads to a perception that the teacher has given more work when the content is asynchronous, even if the teacher timed how long it should take to do something. It is important to remember that now all students have to do everything themselves, and this heightened responsibility gives the impression of more work. This needs to be explained to the students, so they do not overreact to the autonomous learning process.

Perhaps the biggest drawback is something that mainly affects the teacher, and this is the massive amount of preparation that goes into planning and developing prerecorded videos. Unless you have help, a teacher will have to do the following to make prerecorded videos

  • Plan all content for each video
  • Determine the approximate length of each video
  • Edit videos when necessary
  • Make sure not to go over the lecture hours in a given week of the syllabus
  • Upload videos
  • Embed videos into the LMS
  • Insert the questions into the videos to encourage interaction
  • Mark all related assignments

Most of this is already part of the job. However, with videoconferencing, there is more of a free flow to completing much of this as it is happening in real-time. AS such, the amount of prep work can be too much for many people to do alone. However, once it’s done, the content only needs minor revisions and can be useful for awhile.

Tips

Here are some tips to help students have success with asynchronous learning.

Set a schedule. Encourage students to study during the regular class time that was set aside in the course schedule. They are already used to this, and it will help them to manage their time. Of course, they can complete assignments whenever they want as long as they complete them before they are due.

Be Strict. The teacher must make sure the students are moving together through the content. This means that assignments need to be submitted on time. It is easy for students to be spread out with different people working on other chapters or weeks in the course, and the teacher has to keep track of people who are all over the place. In addition, once a student falls behind several weeks, there is little hope they will catch up.

To alleviate this, assignments from last week should be submitted during the current week so that students are up to date. Therefore, a ruthless late policy is needed to motivate students to stay current on assignments. It is also necessary to contact students when they do not complete assignments so they know they are being held responsible.

Give feedback quickly. Students are alone and isolated. They want to do how they are doing, and it is the teacher’s job to provide this. Therefore, the teacher has to be updating the grade book weekly as this serves as a form of communication with the students. This helps the teacher know how everyone is doing so that struggling students can be contacted through messaging or email for follow-up.

Communicate Frequently. Constant communication is needed when teaching 100% asynchronously. When students ask questions, they should be answered immediately, especially during regular business hours. The teacher also needs to provide frequent announcements to the class about major assignments are adjustments to the course. Teaching online means being at your desk and dealing with inquiries in real-time because this establishes a presence in the online learning environment.

Fix problems Fast. If something is not working in the LMS or the course, the teacher needs to immediately deal with this. Remember that frustration grows fast when students are alone like this, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to make sure everything is running smoothly. Let the students be your eyes and ears for broken links and other tech problems while you address how to solve them.

Conclusion

Online learning provides an opportunity for students to learn in a way that is unfamiliar to them. A natural extension of this point is that online learning is a new experience for many teachers. This medium of instruction provides students with a chance to learn independently and for the teacher to focus more on being a facilitator of learning rather than the controller of it.

Joseph Lister: Fight Against Infection

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Joseph Lister (1827-1912) dreamed of becoming a physician. When he entered college in 1846, Lister saw the powerful effect that ether had on people who needed surgery. After this experience, Lister decided to focus specifically on becoming a surgeon.

During this time, surgery was still hazardous. Progress was being made in regards to the problems of pain during surgery. However, the main concern now was with an infection after surgery. Lister removed a simple mole from a man’s face before his wedding only to have the man die from an infection. This led Lister to question the benefits of surgery if death by infection was the result.

Infections

Infection at this time had reached almost epidemic proportions. Anywhere from 40-80% of surgery patients died from infections. Infections were so bad that one hospital was threatened with being burned to the ground if things did not improve. Many doctors still believed Galen that infection was good. They even went so far as to encourage the development of pus (a sign of infection).

Lister was seeking a solution, and he received insights from treating broken bones. Broken bones are either simple or compound. Simple fractures are broken bones that do not break through the skin. Compound fractures are broken bones that pierce the skin. Lister observed that people who suffered simple fractures rarely develop infections, while those who suffered compound fractures commonly developed infections.

Lister suspected that simple compound fractures lead to infection because the broken bones are exposed to germs in the air. This idea came from Louis Pasteur’s work in Germ Theory. Lister determined that if he can find a chemical that kills germs, he can save lives from infection.

Many Solutions

Lister, with the help of a friend, decided to try carbolic acid to kill germs. Soon, a boy came to his office with a compound fracture of his leg. Lister fixed the leg and applied the carbolic acid to the wound to prevent infection. Fortunately, the boy recovered, and there was no infection.

Carbolic acid was not Lister’s only innovation. He also washed his hands before surgery rather than after. In addition, when tying arteries, he would soak the string in carbolic acid before tying the arteries shut. When performing surgery, Lister never wore old blood-stained clothes but always clean white ones. Lister could even get hospitals to stop using old bandages and donated ones and only use sterile, fresh dressings. Many hospitals hated the cost of clean bandages.

Lister’s success at reducing infections was so impressive that many doctors thought he was lying. In the hospital with a fatality rate of 80%, when they adopted Lister’s method, they reduced the death rate to 0.5%. This naturally saved the hospital from being burned to the ground.

One innovation that was made was boiling surgical tools rather than dipping them in carbolic acid. Lister tried this and stated that it didn’t matter as much the method as long as the germs were killed. Regardless, Lister’s methods created a new form of surgery called antiseptic surgery.

Carbolic acid was terrific, but it still had problems. For example, it was harsh on the skin even though it was a mild acid. Chemists came up with new solutions. Joseph Lawrence developed one antiseptic that killed germs without harming human flesh. He named it Listerine in honor of Joseph Lister.

Conclusion

Lister is considered by many to be one of the most excellent surgeons of all time. His contributions lay in his revolutionary insight into saving human life in a reasonable, cost-effective way. His impact is still felt to this day whenever someone has to face the stress of surgery.

Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Theory in the Classroom

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Fredrick Herzberg developed his theory on motivation based on the work of Maslow. Traditionally, Herzberg’s approach has been applied in the world of business and management. In this post, we will explain Herzberg’s theory and show applications of it in the classroom.

Motivator-Hygiene Theory

Herzberg’s theory suggests that there are two sets of needs for individual workers: motivators and hygienes. Motivators can be a person’s sense of achievement through performing various functions that are a part of their job. People often need to grow as a function of their career, and this is what motivates them. Hygienes are things people want to avoid and are associated with pain in one way or the other. For example, dealing with poor leadership is something most people want to avoid and is an example of a hygiene factor.

Additional examples of motivators can include recognition for hard work, which will often inspire people to continue working hard. In addition, anything that leads to the development of additional skills that are causing growth is often associated with motivators.

Additional examples of hygiene include such factors as pay, working conditions, and supervision. In other words, a challenging job with low pay will probably lack motivation because of the low salary. The same can apply to a great job with poor working conditions or terrible supervision. We all know people who left meaningful and engaging occupations because these hygiene factors caused too much dissatisfaction.

However, removing bad hygiene does not make a job great if the motivators are not there. In other words, hygiene and motivators must be positive, but they are not enough in many situations.

In the Classroom

For the teacher, they need to be aware of motivators and hygienes as the deal with their students. Examples of things that motivate students are praise, engaging classwork, making the curriculum relevant, and autonomy. Younger children are often more motivated with less effort when compared to older such as teenagers.

In terms of hygiene factors, classroom management is perhaps one of the most significant factors. If a teacher cannot maintain order in a just and reasonable way, even highly motivated students will quickly turn off to learning. For older students and college, the marking of assignments can also become demotivating if the teacher is not clear in their expectations and communication. Lastly, the teacher needs to show an example of expertise and organization as students have much higher standards for their teacher than they often have for themselves.

Conclusion

Herzberg’s theory can be another way of viewing classroom management. Teachers often deal with the same problems as managers, just with individuals who are not adults. As such, some of Herzberg’s ideas may be useful, but some may not be, but looking for additional insights into managing students is never a bad idea.

William Morton and Anesthesia

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William Morton (1819-1868) was a New Englander who, as a boy, wanted to be a doctor. However, he was poor, and this dream became unrealistic financially. Therefore, Morton switched his goal to becoming a dentist. He soon married but kept his ambition of becoming a doctor one day.

From Dentistry to Medicine

As a dentist, Morton developed one of the best sets of false teeth of his day. The only problem was that in order to use the false teeth, he had to pull all the teeth in someone’s mouth. Naturally, people did not like this idea, not so much because they loved all of their rotten teeth, but because they did not want to experience all of the pain of losing so many teeth at once. Rather than thinking his false teeth was a terrible idea, Morton began to look for a way to lessen the pain medically so he could pull teeth.

From the money he made as a dentist, Morton went to medical school. He enrolled at Harvard medical school. While at the school, Morton witness an amputation. During the surgery, the patient was writhing and screaming in agony. This was disconcerting for many students, including Morton. This experience convinced Morton to focus not just on painless dental surgery but to remove pain from all surgeries.

Ether

Morton’s first attempt at anesthesia was with ether. Through the help of a friend Charles Jackson, he quickly realized that diethyl ether was the best choice for putting people to sleep. Morton experiment on animals and finally on himself to see if the gas would work. Next, Morton used the gas to put a patient asleep while pulling a tooth. Morton then proceeded to pull the tooth out, and the patient was shocked to see that the tooth was removed while he was unconscious.

Morton’s next goal was to use his methods on actual surgery. To do this, he had to convince the head of the Massachusetts General Hospital to use ether. The doctor was concerned about his reputation if something went wrong but granted permission.

The Operation & End

On the day of the operation, Morton put the patient to sleep with ether, and the doctor was able to perform the surgery without a problem. When the patient awoke, he said he felt no pain. With this success, the practice of anesthesia spread all over the USA and Europe.

Morton patented his idea but never really receive compensation. The actual process was easy to copy, and many doctors did it without permission. In addition, one of Morton’s friends, Charles Jackson, claimed that he invented Morton’s method. This battle with a former friend cause Morton to spend most of his time proving that he was the inventor of this method.

The stress of this battle took a toll on Morton’s health, and he would die from a stroke. His enemy Jackson would suffer a similar break down in his mental health. Thus was the tragic end to two men who made a significant contribution to medicine.

Steps Towards Anesthesia

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We will take a look at the history of pain and how doctors try to nullify this problem through various procedures. In particular, we will look at two pioneers in this work who are Humphrey Davy and James Simpson.

Pain has always been a pain when doctors have tried to treat patients. At one point, doctors tried opium to deaden the pain. Opium worked but would often leave the patient addicted to the drug, which was not feasible. Other doctors tried alcohol. Alcohol did not work either when the surgery or procedure began, and the patient was screaming in agony.

The next approach involved speed. The faster the doctor could cut and pull, the better. Before anesthesia, surgeries often lasted less than 5 minutes, and some doctors could cut off an entire leg in less than a minute. Naturally, complex operations were impossible under such circumstances. At this point, it was clear that whether drugs, alcohol, or speed was used, an alternative was needed to help patients with pain during medical procedures.

Humphrey Davy

Many doctors in the 18th century believed that various gases could help patients deal with pain. This lead to the development of pneumatic hospitals. This is where a young man named Humphrey Davy worked as a teenager in England. After being exposed to the power of gases as a teenager, Davy became a druggist before switching entirely to chemistry.

As a chemist, Davy worked for the physician Thomas Beddoes to develop new gases. This was both challenging and dangerous because Davey had a foolish habit of smelling his new gases rather than testing them on animals first. Such a practice as this nearly killed him several times. Eventually, he would become disable and almost blind from his careless experiments.

Despite his disregard for safety, one of Davy’s discoveries was what we call today laughing gas or nitrous oxide. Davy gave talks and lectures on his work and helped him to become somewhat famous in England.

Davy suspected that his laughing gas might be useful for surgery. This turned out to be false as laughing gas was not strong enough. However, dentists have used laughing gas for pulling teeth as the gas is a strong enough sedative for that kind of procedure. The goal of painless surgery was partially solved, but further help was needed to complete this mission.

James Simpson

The next step in this journey was taken by James Simpson, another young man from England. Growing up poor, Simpson’s family invested everything in him to go to college and medical school. Eventually, not only was Simpson a doctor, but he also was a college lecture of medicine.

Simpson heard that in the US, doctors were using ether as an anesthetic. Simpson tried this but had problems. Ether did not act the same from patient to patient, it smelled terrible and was highly explosive or flammable.

To deal with these problems, Simpson switched to chloroform. Chloroform solved all of Simpson’s problems. It was consistent in how it acted, had a sweet smell, and was not explosive or flammable. Despite this, many resisted Simpson’s innovations, and he had to work hard to persuade them.

However, the battle for an anesthetic was not over. Chloroform had other problems besides those of ether. For example, chloroform is carcinogenic. In addition, some people suffer heart attacks when they breathe it. Therefore, the journey continued in finding a cure for pain.

Theories of Motivation and the Classroom

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Motivation is a crucial driver for success in education. This post will look at two theories of motivation and briefly connect them when appropriate to the classroom. These two theories are Manifest Needs Theory and ERG Theory.

Manifest Needs Theory

Henry Murray developed a theory of motivation called Manifest Needs theory. For Murray, needs are divided into two broad categories called primary and secondary needs. Primary needs are physiological needs, such as food, water, shelter, etc. Secondary needs are needs that people acquire or learn about through life. Examples of secondary needs are achievement, affiliation, etc.

This theory assumes that people are driven to satisfy these needs. If a student is talkative, they probably need affiliation. If a student is hard-working, they probably need achievement. People’s behavior is often an indication of what they need. There is an exception to this, and this is what Murray calls a latent need.

A latent need is a need that cannot be inferred by a person’s behavior. This is probably because the person is not able to satisfy this need. For example, a student may be disruptive because they are bored in class. The behavior indicates a need for affiliation, but the real need is achievement.

The point is that the behavior of a student can often be a clue to what motivates them. However, this comes with exceptions, as was already discussed.

ERG Theory

Clayton Alderfer took a different view of motivation. Alderfer proposes three categories of needs, which are existence, relatedness, growth. These three categories are where the acronym ERG comes from. Existence needs are physiological and material in nature, such as food, water, safety, etc. Relatedness needs are social and include esteem and interpersonal opportunities. Growth needs are related to personal development and include self-esteem and self-actualization.

These categories are ranked. In other words, existence needs must be met first, followed by existence, and lastly by growth. There are four different ways to move or stay in a particular category. Satisfaction progression involves satisfying the needs in one category and then focusing on the next category. For example, if food, water, and safety are taken care of, many students will focus more on relationships.

Frustration happens when people want to satisfy a need but cannot satisfying the needs that belong to a category. This can lead to over-focusing on the need. For example, a student needs attention and interaction but is told to be quiet in class. Being forced to be silent makes the need for socializing even stronger.

The third form is frustration regression. Frustration regression happens when a person cannot satisfy higher needs, so they double down on satisfying lower needs. If a student is not allowed to talk, they may focus on eating or drinking or asking to go to the bathroom. Since socializing is blocked, there is a greater focus on existence needs such as food and hygiene.

The final form is aspiration. This form explains the inherent satisfaction in growth. As people are allowed to grow, they become more and more satisfied with growing.

Conclusion

People are motivated by similar things, but there may be a difference in their behavior and how they satisfy their needs. As teachers, we need to be able to look at our students and determine ways to motivate them to succeed.

William Harvey: Blood Circulation

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William Harvey (1578-1657) was an influential doctor whose main contributions came through his work in the circulatory system of the body. In this post, we will take a brief look at his life.

Life as a Student

William Harvey was an English man who decided as a young man that he wanted to be a doctor. This desire led him to Padua, Italy, where he studied medicine. During Harvey’s studies, Galileo was also a teacher at the same university. Some of Galileo’s views towards science would have a strong influence on Harvey.

For example, Galileo insisted that experiments were the way to learn about anything. This was during a time when people would blindly obey authority in many matters. The authority of the past was not the final answer. People needed to explore for themselves. Harvey applied these ideas that Galileo had in the non-living science in the medical sciences.

During his studies, Harvey read all the works of the great physicians of the past, such as Hippocrates, Galen, and most recently, Vesalius. Vesalius mentions Galen’s mistakes, yet doctors still clung to Galen in matters that had not been questioned.

Some of the errors that doctors clung to include the ideas that veins carried blood away from the heart, the liver made blood, blood ebbed and flowed like the ocean in the body, and that the blood caused the heart to beat. This was all based on speculation rather than observation through experiments.

As a student, Harvey attended many dissections. During these demonstrations, he was allowed to see the veins, arteries, and heart. Inside the veins are little trap doors that help with the flow of blood. However, Harvey noticed that these doors were on the wrong side if blood was supposed to flow to the heart.

Life as a Doctor

After finishing medical school, Harvey did several experiments involving blood circulation. In these experiments, he would tie off veins and arteries in the body. His conclusion from this was that veins carried blood to the heart, and arteries carried blood away from the heart. In addition, Harvey concluded that blood was reused and not created by the liver.

When Harvey shared his results, not too many people seemed to care. People did not see how this knowledge would help with the prevention of disease. Doctors at this time did not know that understanding circulation was the key to many forms of disease. Harvey demonstrated this when he tied off the arteries to a tumor on a person. With the loss of blood, the tumor withered away.

One question Harvey was never able to answer was how blood flowed from arteries to veins. This question was answered a few years before Harvey’s death thanks to the use of a microscope that discovered tiny blood vessels called capillaries.

During his life, Harvey was often attacked by other doctors for his discoveries. These critics were never able to prove that Harvey was wrong; instead, they quoted Galen as the final word. Despite this, Harvey became the King of England’s physician and was elected president of the College of Physicians even though he turned this down.

Conclusion

Curiosity may be one of the most essential traits of innovation. Authority is not wrong; however, it can be abused and lead to people sacrificing their responsibility to think for themselves. Harvey was an individual who decided he would see for himself if what others said was true.

Barriers to Decision-Making

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A google search will show you that the average person makes 35,000 decisions a day. This seems like a large amount, but teachers make 1,500 educational decisions a day. Making such a vast number of decisions can lead to fatigue, among other problems. A greater danger may be making poor decisions. Here we will look at some common barriers to decision making.

Sunk Cost

Sunk cost happens after a decision is made. What has happened is there are signs that a decision is terrible, but the leadership sticks to the decision because of the investment that has already been made. It is common for teachers and administrators to invest in products and services that later turn out to be inferior. However, because a commitment has been made and resources spent, there is a hope that staying the course will allow for an improvement in the situation.

To avoid this trap, administrators must realize that not all decisions are good ones. This means that when an idea is not working, the administrators or teachers who made the wrong choice to own the mistake shrink the mistake’s cost. Ignoring this to look like you’re in control and know what you are doing can be highly damaging to an institution.

Uncertainty

Decision-making should be as informed as possible. However, we never have access to all knowledge. This implies that there is always a measure of risk. Due to the uncertainty, leadership generally will choose the most conservative option available to minimize risk. This is wise at times but can leave tremendous opportunities on the table.

An idea related to uncertainty is a concept called bounded rationality. Bounded rationality states that people who face complex or uncertain situations often cannot make entirely rational decisions. In other words, when facing uncertainty, people’s decision-making can become uncertain or unpredictable. This commonly happens in novel situations in which it is unclear what to do. In such cases, people are limited in how much they can process and thus utilize their intuition to overcome.

Conflict

People generally want to avoid conflict. This is particularly true when decision-making involves conflict. Despite this, there are times when conflict is the best decision, such as when a student will not obey a teacher. If the teacher avoids the conflict, it sends a message to other students to duplicate the disobedient child’s behavior, which will lead to more significant problems and harsher conflict in the future.

There are at least two ways to think of conflict, and the difference is in terms of what people focus on during the disagreement. Process conflict is focused on improving how to do something and can lead to improved performance. Relationship conflict is a conflict between people that can often gt highly personal and should be avoided. The challenge is that people confuse process and relationship conflict. For example, a student is disrupting the class, the teachers reprimand this, and the student takes it personally.

As a teacher or administrator, it is crucial to keep conflict focus on process and behavior and not on people. When people become the problem, relationship conflict is sure to follow.

Conclusion

Decision-making is a crucial component of everyone’s life. Every day we are all called to make many different decisions. The implications of our choices could be tremendous. Therefore, that is why it is essential to be aware of common roadblocks to making sound decisions.

Ambroise Pare and Modern Surgery

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For most of the history of Western medicine, doctors rarely performed surgeries themselves, especially among the professors. This is probably surprising to many. However, there was a belief that manual labor (work with your hands) was beneath an educated thinker. A thinker’s job was to think about how to solve a problem.

The people who did the majority of surgeries were the barbers. Today barbers do not do surgeries. However, barbers were especially popular for minor surgeries, and the red and white you see in front of a barbershop represents the red of blood and the white f bandages.

One barber who had a tremendous influence on medicine and surgery was Ambroise Pare (1510-90). Pare was from France and was raised in a poor family. He received a basic education and became a barber’s assistant with the goal of becoming a doctor.

Medical School & Disappointment

At the age of 19, Pare went to Paris to study medicine. Whoever, his dream was crushed when he was unable to pass the entrance exam. The exam was in Greek and Latin, and these were languages Pare did not learn as a child as his poor background did not allow for this.

Disappointed, Pare became a barber-surgeon at a hospital. The conditions were terrible, with low lighting and ventilation. Professors would bring their students there to see applied medicine, with most students eager to leave with a dream of treating the rich when they graduated. However, Pare gained a tremendous amount of practical experience and was beginning to learn when teachers were right and wrong about the body.

During War

During one of the many wars that France was involved in, Pare became a surgeon. The practice of the time was to pour boiling oil on gunshot wounds. This could burn a wounded man alive like fried chicken. However, it was considered the best treatment. Pare did this until he ran out of oil. With the oil gone, he made his own concoction of egg yolk, oil of roses, and turpentine. This mixture was much more successful than the burning oil solution that was standard practice.

Another innovation with Pare was amputations. Surgeons had no problem removing limbs from people without thought to the pain caused. After butchering the patient, a hot iron was applied to stop the bleeding. Often this alone would kill a person who had survived losing an arm or leg. Pare decided to use silk thread to close the wound, which would spare the patient the added pain of the hot iron. The soldiers loved Pare for his approach to medicine, while the real doctors resented his work.

Pare combined all of his practical knowledge into a book. However, he struggled to get it published because real doctors despised him because of his fame. Even a law stated that no book on medicine could be published until doctors from the University of Paris approved. It took four years, but when the book was published, it was highly popular.

Conclusion

Par was a self-made man. He lacked the formal education of a doctor but made up for it through practical experience helping people who were hurt. In the end, the practical experience was more valuable as Pare was able to see the discrepancies between theory and practice.

Learned Needs Theory and Students

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David Mclelland developed Learned Needs Theory. In his research, Mclelland states that people have three primary needs: need for achievement, need for affiliation, and a need for power. These three forms of needs are learned in childhood.

Need for Achievement

The need for achievement is how strongly a person wants to have success at completing a task. Some students have a strong desire for achievement, and this is reflected in their grades. For them, the grades they earn are a measure of their high achievement. However, not all students have a strong need for achievement, and this can also be seen in their grades in some other way, such as lack of participation.

McClelland explains the three main traits of high achieving people. One, high-achieving people feel a personal responsibility when they are expected to do something. When a student with high achievement needs is given a task, they are willing to accept the success or failure of the task. It becomes their mission.

Two, high achievement people like to take on projects that have a moderate success rate. In other words, high achievement individuals hate something that is too easy but equally lose motivation for suicide tasks that have a low success rate. Instead, they want to see a return for hard work. For students, a teacher needs to make sure tasks are within the zone of proximal development to be assured that the task is not too easy but preferably within reach of the student with some assistance.

High achievers also have a desire for feedback. This is because they want to know if they have achieved success. The feedback can be positive or negative, but it needs to be there. For students, this means providing clear information to the high achieving student in terms of their progress on assignments and the course overall.

If high achievers are not allowed to achieve, it can disrupt behavior and students who lack motivation. Therefore, when dealing with classroom management issues, a teacher should consider if they are meeting their high achievers’ achievement needs.

Need For Affiliation

The need for affiliation is a need to have positive social relationships with other people. These are your classic extroverts who love the company of others. Everyone has some need for affiliation, but for many, this is a high need.

For people who need affiliation, the task is not essential to them. Instead, people who need affiliation respond to situations in which people depend on them. For students, this can be situations such as group projects and or team sports. Others need them, and this is when the outgoing student will achieve.

Nothing can cripple high affiliated people than isolation. Make a student who needs relationship work alone will lead to potential behavioral problems. In addition, students who have a low need for affiliation will equally cause issues if they are always expected to socialize and be a part of the group.

Need for Power

The need for power is a need to control, which means to influence other people. A person with this need is often talkative, arguing, and giving orders. Many leaders need power.

McClelland indicates two types of power, and these are personal power and social power. Personal power is a power to control others and is often political with a secret agenda. Social power is also seeking to influence others but to achieve the goals of the group or organization.

Students can seek one or both forms of power in different situations. For example, students who want to disrupt the class and distract students from learning are trying to flex their personal power skills. Students trying to get their peers to complete group projects and class assignments are using their social power skills. The students who are mostly influenced by either of these forms of power may not have a strong need for power.

To deal with students who need power, teachers need to provide outlets for this need. A student who is pushing personal power needs to find goals that align with the classroom. When the dissonance between what they want and what the teacher wants is removed, the student can now use their need for power for social rather than personal reasons.

Conclusion

Everyone has slightly different needs. For teachers, it is crucial always to identify what motivates their students. When this is done, the teacher can challenge the needs to enhance learning.