Electrical Engineering and Electrophysiology

I am sure you are not surprised when I tell you that I feel strongly about teaching electric circuits to neurobiologists in training. It is my conviction that introducing basic electric circuits first as a symbolic language (resistor, capacitor, voltage source) with a simple syntax (Kirchhoff's two rules) is better than teaching electrophysiology sprinkled with electric circuit symbols and diagrams without proper introduction. Of course both approaches are of value. The challenge with starting with circuits and then applying them to electrophysiology is to convince students that they should spend a two hour lecture learning about circuits with little reference to biology or electrophysiology.

I am lucky to get the chance to try my approach in our first year neurobiology graduate course. My teaching is based on the "Electric Circuit" toolbox and the first two chapters of my book Network Neuroscience.

Here are the comments I got from the student feedback (unedited, emphasis is mine). It may have helped that there was a massive thunderstorm during that lecture (including a power outage) which nicely illustrated how electric nature is...

Background info: I refuse to use slides in lectures for graduate students. My teaching style is a friendly version of the Socratic method which focuses on making sure students stay engaged and understand the material. What I learn from the comments is that some students may need some more structure (perhaps handouts, lecture outlines etc). I will try to incorporate these suggestions into next years teaching. Overall, I feel it worked to start with an electrical engineering lecture. Your thoughts?

• great lecture and very interactive class
• Interesting lectures and understanding of them. Could have used a little more explanation of Matlab functions and how to change aspects of models.
• very good teaching style, but offered little assessment for such a technical lesson plan
• His lecture style is a little sporadic but I do have to admit that I understood the material after his lectures. His lectures are engaging and contributed to my learning.
• Resources like slides or suggested readings would have been helpful
• made circuits kinda fun which i'd never though i'd say
• great
• Teaching style was highly refreshing and engaged the class the best of all of the professors. Excellent explanations of important principles needed to understand electrophys.
• Really enjoyed the no powerpoint approach. Made it easier to focus on what you're trying to teach us. Did an
• awesome job at explaining some of the fundamentals of neuroscience
• Great lecture! I was happy that we were able to apply what we learnt in class with guidance. Even with a non
• neuro background this lecture was easy to follow and understand.
• Outstanding lecturer! I really appreciated the Simulink modeling because I think it helped connect what we were learning in lecture with what's really happening in neurons and it was really helpful to my understanding of the material.
• While I absolutely appreciate the encouragement of engaging in the lectures, it would be very helpful to have some concrete correct notes to go back to, or a way to watch the lectures again.
• The derivations were interesting but I would have liked more focus on the applications. I knew how the formulas were derived but on the test I was unsure how to apply some of them or what exactly they meant sometimes.
• enthusiasm was great!!Also really helpful to learn circuits, it made ephys make a lot more sense.