The innovative use of technology and the blended classroom have offered mechanisms to address unique challenges of continuity encountered in the multi-section, university science laboratory classroom. Using technology to flip the classroom, blending technology with hands-on learning, and producing videos for direct instruction and TA training have offered effective solutions.
Science laboratory classes at the university have a unique set of challenges that must be addressed to insure that all learners have an equal and engaging experience. Often there are multiple sections of these courses that are taught by a variety of individuals with diverse content backgrounds and teaching practices. This leads to great differences in how students are engaged in the laboratory and the rigor of the exercises and assessments. Teaching Assistants (TAs) with little experience or confidence fall back to lecture as a default teaching method and provide less context for content than seasoned instructors. This lack of continuity of lab sections is problematic because successful completion of these courses often serves as benchmark for acceptance into professional programs such as nursing, Physical Therapy, Pharmacy or Physician’s Assistant programs and when these courses are not equal, comparison of student grades from these classes for admission becomes unequitable.
The innovative use of technology and the blended classroom have offered mechanisms to address these challenges in the Human Anatomy and Physiology laboratory (A&P) at a regional, four-year University. While completely online sections of A&P lab lack necessary hands-on components, the blended classroom delivers engaging, hands-on in-class instruction with students who are more-prepared to learn and able to make connections. Sections of the A&P lab were flipped so that students studied an e-text chapter, watched and Instructor-produced video and completed digital homework prior to lab. These activities were designed to provide background knowledge and understanding of the lab exercise. During lab, the TA or Instructor served as a facilitator for exercises that were centered on a Case Study. Using the previously learned background knowledge from the digital pre-lab environment, students worked through a series of lab exercises and activities that helped them achieve a “task”. For example, in the laboratory covering the anatomy and physiology of blood, students are presented with the case study of a young man whose mother has sickle cell disease. When he takes a trip with his friends, they become ill with malaria, while he does not. He, with the students, take the journey of understanding the genetics of blood, as well as the anatomy and physiology of this tissue. Students perform electrophoresis using the DNA “from” the young man in the case study, and his friends, do blood typing experiments and run a hematocrit. The blending of the background material using technology as a pre-lab with the in-class Case Study framework makes learning interesting and engaging. TAs have less responsibility of delivering course-content giving lab sections more continuity.
In lab sessions where direct teacher instruction is still needed, again, technology becomes an effective solution to divergent confidence and experience of TAs. In these labs, TAs are to model the building of anatomical structures in clay and how they are positioned on a 15 inch skeletal model. TAs often feel unqualified to lead this type of activity. To bolster TA confidence, videos were made by the lab supervisor demonstrating the teaching of each lab. These videos were prepared in a “Food Network” style so that the supervisor directed comments at the audience and prompted the TA to stop the video after each 5-10 minute section so that students could work. These “How To” videos were used in one of three ways: 1) as preparation for the TA to teach the lab 2) as direct Instruction in the lab (show video during class with inserted pauses) 3) not used at all. Fifty –five percent of students surveyed reported that they agreed with the statement “The videos in class helped to provide continuity between sections.” Thirty-three percent neither agreed nor disagreed and only twelve percent disagreed with the statement. The teaching assistants liked the safety net that the videos provided. TAs teaching multiple sections of the lab tended to use the videos directly as teaching agents in the lab at in the beginning of the week, but often were teaching without the videos by the end of the week. This indicates that the videos modeled the content and teaching of the content for the TAs increasing their confidence and ability to direct instruction. Using the videos both as TA training systems and to provide continuity for the lab is an effective and efficient use of resources that protects faculty time.