Intended Audience: College-level Biology and Human Anatomy and Physiology students that will be participating in a histology (study of tissues) lab.
Tools Used: Camtasia
Goal/Objective
Students in Biology and Anatomy and Physiology courses often have a hard time with the portion of the lab dedicated to studying histology. This is an essential component of understanding how the human body works. Traditionally, students come to lab without any prior knowledge of the structure or function of the four broad tissue types (except possibly reading about it in a textbook) and when they start looking at tissue slides under the microscope, they are overwhelmed and quickly become discouraged. When there is only one instructor and over 20 students with questions, it is nearly impossible to run an efficient lab. Students end up sitting around, waiting for the instructor to come over to help them identify the tissues or components of the tissues. This video aims to give students an introduction to the four broad types of tissues as well as defining characteristics of each. Students can watch this short video (~8 minutes) prior to class and refer back to it if they have questions while completing the lab. This works as a supplement to the instructor's assistance.
Needs Analysis
Unit evaluations in anatomy and physiology courses consistently show that the histology is the lesson that students feel they need more practice, resources, or assistance. When deciding on if a training on this topic would be helpful, I surveyed former colleagues that teach/taught histology in their courses and they provided feedback that: (1) their students were underprepared coming into the histology lab; (2) they felt overwhelmed in trying to answer all of the students’ questions because they had to go to each microscope to help the student adjust the view, magnification, etc. and explain what they should be looking at to determine what type of tissue it was; and (3) the textbook was not sufficient in comparing the tissue types and giving a broad overview without overwhelming the students. I decided that an eLearning project would be a good option to train students on what to look for under the microscope and give them the basic information on the four broad types of tissues. I wanted to deliver the information through a visually-appealing video in order to hold the attention of the students. The cost of creating the project is low while the benefits are great for both students and instructors. Students will get clear, concise, information prior to the lab (and they can refer back to it at any point) and instructors will be more available to address student needs during the lab. This can be used every semester as the information does not change.
Challenges/Obstacles
One of my challenges in creating this course was avoiding scope creep. College instructors are notorious for putting in way more information than what someone can reasonably retain. When consulting with former colleagues, I noticed they tried to fit more and more information into the short video. I learned that if I approach the SMEs with a clear outline of what the students need to know prior to lab (and what information should be kept as “nice to know”) the student learning is likely to be better. The goal is not for the students to know everything there is to know about histology so the video only needs to teach what is necessary for them to start exploring the tissues under the microscope. They will build upon those lessons within the lab. Being extremely candid with the other SMEs helped me to build a focused course that could easily be used in every human anatomy course.
Another challenge I faced when creating this course was finding relevant videos to accompany the microscopic images. I wanted the video to be engaging but, unfortunately, I only had access to a limited number of videos on the topic of histology or anatomy and physiology. In the future, I will source more resources for the topic if I am worried about running into the same issue.
Implementation
This project will be posted within the learning management system and user engagement will be tracked. The video will be made available prior to the histology lab and learners will be able to access it on-demand so that they can refer to it while looking at slides under the microscope.
Evaluation
Although the project has not yet been delivered to learners, I would evaluate the success based on the several things:
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.