About This Blog

MOB University is based on the idea that a student knows the struggles of learning new concepts a little bit better than the teacher, who probably learned the same concept several years ago.

When I was stationed in Iraq, my last year in the military, I decided I wanted to go back to school to become a Medical Doctor. The plan of attack was to major in  biology and then go on to medical school.

I spent the next twelve months scraping up as much knowledge as i could about biology. Needless to say, very little was available online. There were a few really awesome animations on Youtube, but that was about all I could find. Later on, after starting college classes, I discovered Khan Academy--a much better overall resource than what I can offer in my blog, but will not go as in depth in biology as I will go. I do not claim to be as great a teacher as Sal, but I will try to go further than what his site currently allows for biology students.


I digress; after I got back to the great state of Missouri, I started college at a local community college. The teachers were great, my grades were great, and I ended up earning an Associates degree in just under 12 months. Since it was a community college, I had to transfer on to a University in order to finish up my undergraduate degree. I transferred to a nearby University only to find out that most of the biology course work I took in the community college did not count toward my biology degree.

So, here I am re-taking the exact same courses, with very little difference from what I learned in the community college. 

Didactic theory (the theory about learning and teaching) states that the more ways you utilize a piece of knowledge, the more likely you are to remember it and integrate it with other things in your life. Well, I've already read entire biology books, I've done the flash cards, I've filled out worksheets. The next step for me in the didactic theory is to teach this information to someone else.  If I can teach a lower level biology course to someone else, then I can say I have obtained at least a low level of mastery over the subject matter.

My intentions here are two-fold. I would like to provide a biology education to those who may not have it available to them. The soldier in Iraq, the Sailor in the Persian Gulf, and the home-school child living on a farm all have two things in common: limited resources and an internet connection.  I remember how frustrating it was to search in vain for information that was just out of my reach. Now, I would like to put the cookies on the bottom shelf, while at the same time increasing my own mastery of the subject.

In the future, I foresee myself doing videos like the ones you find here for all of my biology classes and then continuing to make videos for course work covered in medical school.  Perhaps young people in third-world countries will be able to study hard enough and long enough to gain an understanding of the human body that will enable them to treat their sick, and comfort their suffering. This DIY medical school would be targeted toward third world nations, but would be helpful for anyone taking, or planning to take courses in the context of a medical school at any point in the future.

Now, to cover my own rear...!
Disclaimer: The videos posted on this blog are for educational purposes only. Any use of the information or knowledge contained in this blog is at the sole discretion and risk of the person using the information. Mike Birkhead cannot be held liable for bad information, misinformation, or lack of information contained in any blog posting. The intentions of this blog is educational value, but Mike Birkhead is not guaranteed to be precise or accurate. These videos should not be intended or construed in any way to be used for practical application. This blog is also not guaranteeing any results as they may pertain to an actual University or academic setting.

Lastly: All copyrighted material is used under fair use for educational purposes only. If there are any complaints about copyrighted material that you own, please email me and I will have it removed from the blog. I have contacted two textbook publishers and several websites about using their images. I have not heard back from the textbook publishers at this time (Several months later). Therefore, I will use these images legally under the doctrine of "fair use."