[Huck]

most students taking an honors or AP course in anataomy is probably thinking medicine or research. While I think it's important to remember these people are still just "kids," I also feel it's important for these students to "get used to the idea" so to speak, especially if they are planning careers in the areas I described

It's even simpler than that. The course should be designed to meet certain learning objectives. These objectives should be communicated to the student/parents in advance. And then the instruction that takes place in the class should be designed to meet those objectives.

The next question is this: How do you know if the student has met those objectives? You test them. When I took high school biology, we were graded (tested) on our performance in dissecting a fetal pig, according to specific criteria. By the time you are teaching the class, there really is no debate over what learning exercises will take place. Technically speaking, the objectives dictate the activity. We were tested on our ability to perform a dissection using specific techniques of cutting and pinning and so on. So there was no question we would be using a real pig. And we knew it from day one.

There can be choices. As I said before, if the only objective is to be able to identify certain organs, then dissection, while preferred, is not entirely necessary. That is, you could get by with pictures and drawings if you had to. It's not as good as using a real animal, because there's nothing like the real thing. But if the learning objective contains performance measurements such as "learner will be able to remove the liver from a fetal pig" then you need a scalpel and a pig.

What you state is a strong rationale for including that type of learning objective. And unless there was a breakdown somewhere, the parents should have known what the objectives were in advance. They should have known that the student would be performing a dissection on an animal.

[Dianna]

There can be choices. As I said before, if the only objective is to be able to identify certain organs, then dissection, while preferred, is not entirely necessary. That is, you could get by with pictures and drawings if you had to. It's not as good as using a real animal, because there's nothing like the real thing. But if the learning objective contains performance measurements such as "learner will be able to remove the liver from a fetal pig" then you need a scalpel and a pig.

We dissected a cat while doing the "muscle" part of the curriculum. Sure, you could learn muscle names and locations out of a book. But it was more interesting to separate them all out on the cat. (This was the only part of anatomy I did poorly on. My partner and I had a heck of a time separating the muscles and were weeks behind before the teacher noticed that our cat was not cooperative. We never did finish the dissection and I think I flunked the test. Maybe I really did need the darn cat to learn it? LOL!)