Embedded Files
Phase I: Goals
To reduce the amount of student time spent within class completing pre and post laboratory assignments, files will be uploaded onto Sakai and turned into quizzes. Presenting the materials to the students online and keeping these extra papers out of their notebooks will decrease the distraction time spent in lab where students are trying to complete their papers and not their dissections.
Pre-laboratory worksheets will be transferred into Sakai, which students will then receive as a quiz they are allowed to take at any time. The due date will be the day that the student has lab and will encourage students to read the material beforehand and come prepared to lab, lessening the needed lecture time, and allowing for more interaction and hands-on dissection time.
Post-laboratory worksheets will administered in the fashion.
Phase I Challenges:
Although students have been shown to prefer the flipped classroom methodologies, like these pre-laboratory worksheets, they do not necessarily perform better on information-based exams. Moffett & Mill (2014) compared two introductory veterinary courses and found this was the case. Though students liked the flipped classroom and online method of teaching, the traditional classroom students still outperformed them on a multiple-choice question exam.
Post-laboratory worksheets are completed within the students dissection group and students are allowed to turn in only 1 sheet per group. Changing the method of delivery to Sakai poses a challenge to this method because I do not believe that you can take a quiz as a group on Sakai.
In addition, if students complete their dissection early and have time left over in lab, they are allowed to work on their post-lab worksheets. There is currently only one computer in the lab used for teaching assistants to long in and out of the University's time system. This lack of technology and clean workspace may prevent the students from using their lab time to the fullest.
Phase I Solutions:
Sakai has an Assignment tab, which can be used to have students download a document that they can then edit and upload back to the professor. It is possible that pre-lab worksheets are administered through individual quizzes, while the post-lab worksheets are administered via the assignment tab.
Administering the pre-lab worksheets as a multiple-choice quiz will allow faculty to evaluate students performance as they move through the course as well as making sure that the quality of the material they are learning outside of class is consistent with standards which has been a concern for STEM teachers (Herreid & Schiller, 2013).
Additional clean workspace should be made available to the students, so they may work via their own computers if they so choose.
Phase II Goals:
Students in the Honors program strive to go beyond the daily teachings of the already challenging Anatomy Lab. Students will be paired and assigned an extra, "special" dissection as they have been in the past. Instead of just dissecting, labeling and presenting the dissection to the class as in previous years, students will add an element of technology to their projects.
Pairs will be asked to edit a Google site, similar to this one. Each main tab on the sidebar will be a dissection page. Each pair of students will be expected to dissect and label their specimen.
They will then write a page that explains how this organ or specimen is unique.
1-2 videos of how the organ works and labeled pictures of their dissection will also be required.
Students will then present their specimen/organ live to the classroom, by use of a camera and projector.
The webpage will be available to the rest of the class to help them understand and study, as well as allow them to have the same experience of gaining knowledge that the honors students had with the professor. In this aspect of the lab, both technological and ideological movements are used to allow the free flow of information to all students (Bishop & Vergeler, 2013).
Phase II Challenges:
Not all professors are similar with Google sites so the administration and oversight of the page will most likely fall on teaching assistants and other aids such as the Laboratory Coordinator.
A faculty or staff member will need to administer the rights of sharing and editing the page as well as making sure that the content is acceptable and educational.
Videos will need to be approved before the students upload them onto their page. Creating the webpage will most certainly help the rest of the class understand the specimens and allow them to study outside of lab time, however this still does not resolve the crowding issue that happens when the honors students present to the labs.
The technology used to project images throughout the laboratory is still lacking, so students may try to rely soley on the internet images and site and not pay attention during the live presentations.
Phase II Solutions:
Classes should be offered at the college level to demonstrate the new technologies that are provided to teachers. We have a fantastic technology department at the University level, and we would like to see some college-driven seminars where representatives come to our department. The College IT department consists of 1 main IT personnel for each department. Additional IT support may need to be provided by staff members outside of the college's IT department as long as they have the proper training (i.e. myself the Laboratory Coordinator).An IPEVO Point 2 View USB camera can be purchased and used for dissection presentation, allowing the entire class to see the dissection at once.
We are not trying to take away the traditional laboratory, but add additional online resources for the students. As shown at Colorado State University, students given the chance to use both the traditional laboratory for their course on organ systems as well as virtual materials responded favorably with 70% viewing the virtual materials as having better accessibility and easier to use (Kogan, et.al., 2014). Here, honors dissections are part of the students 3 laboratory practicals and these online materials can be used to help study. The most common reason for the use of the virtual materials in the study presented by Kogan, et.al. (2014), was in fact to review materials before an exam. Long term solutions are included in Phase III because they involve the addition of new cameras and equipment to allow live shots at any table to be projected across the lab, and this falls under the facility renovation.
Phase III Goals:
Worrilow Hall (built in 1980) is being put up to the University committees to be placed on the renovation list.
Building issues consist of inadequate ventilation throughout, roof damage during storms and no longer meeting the updated ADA codes, including everything from accessibility to hand railing heights.
With renovations, the Anatomy Laboratory would become an area that is moveable and multipurpose.
This includes multiple projection areas, including televisions and projection screens throughout the laboratory, and a new camera system that will cover all dissection tables and allow students to project their specific projects.
Phase III Challenges:
Acquisition of funds is the largest challenge. We are currently still not on the University's high priority list at this time. Additionally facility design and feasibility may be a challenge. Our types of dissections and amount of them work best with having stationary tables, but this prevents the room from being flexible like you see in Gore classrooms and the ISE laboratories.
The College of Health Sciences has a very flexible room design as their tables are black rolling units that you slide your corpse onto. This works for such a large specimen, like the human body but may not be the most efficient for 25 cat dissections.
We do not see gaining any extra space so design renovations will include maximizing the space we have to accommodate our growing student body.
Phase III Solutions:
Secure funding avenues outside the University budgets, through state and government lines as well as donations from alumni.
Employment of a design group to work on the building as a whole and then the specific facilities within, SmithGroup is currently consulting with our college. The projected timeline for this project still remains unclear and many years down the road.
A smaller step may be provided by our current IT department and some internal funding that will allow us to mount 1-2 TV's in the lab to increase the visual aids during a lecture or demonstration.
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