Online Laboratory: Innovative or Infuriating?

1. Online Laboratory: Innovative or Infuriating? David Greene David.Greene@ColoState.EDU

2. Dewey . . . • “all genuine education comes through experience”(1938, p. 25). . . and Dewey advised using “those cases in which we find there is a real development of desirable [experiences] . . .” Dewey, J. (1938). "Experience and education." New York: Macmillan

3. Dewey . . . • Dewey characterized the educational process - "continual reorganization, reconstruction and transformation of experience" (1916, p. 50) Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education. An introduction to the philosophy of education (1966 edn.), New York: Free Press. Read more: John Dewey (1859–1952) - Experience and Reflective Thinking, Learning, School and Life, Democracy and Education - Experiences, Philosophy, Society, and Educationalhttp://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1914/Dewey-John-1859-1952.html#ixzz1TnYipEiT

4. Anatomy and biomechanics are all about experience (I know this is a stretch in the use of the term!); can this real experience be created online? Links to content: https://ramct.colostate.edu/webct/urw/lc5116011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct http://www.mycahs.colostate.edu/david.greene/Functional_Mechanical_Antomy/OT450_BioHumanOccupation_index.htm

18. Sample Completed Assignment:

19. Another:

20. Picture Postings Spring 2011(13 Students & Not Required)

21. Picture Postings SM 2011 (46 students & required)

22. Pictures of their work . . .

24. Course Evals – SP2010 (1st Run – Constructions!)

25. But when they arrived in the fall and we talked . . . . • Stressed with too much construction and too little time (regardless of 16-week or 8-week course) • Too difficult to take and upload digital pictures of work or didn’t own a digital camera • Had to pack camera, computer; re establish internet connection to finish after move • Didn’t keep skeleton because didn’t thing would be needing it

27. Course Eval Spring 2011(substantially less construction & more BMA) Website navigation 3.43 out of 5!

28. Construction helped 4 out of 5

29. Lab-type activities effective online 2.86 out of 5!!!!!!!!!!!!!

32. Take-home: Students valued the attributes specific to online offering – but did not feel it was effective mode of offering!

33. Course eval comments – Spring 2011 (n=13) Types of activities/assignments contributing most to your experience and learning . . . • Reading through the website material was very helpful to me (2 mentions): “lectures interesting and stimulating as they encouraged you to participate in interactive activities and gave you an idea of what you were looking at.” • BMAs (6 mentions): “It allowed me to think about more practical/real-life experiences that OTs may face on the job.”

34. Course eval comments – Spring 2011 (n=13) Types of activities/assignments contributing most to your experience and learning . . . • Textbook (1 response) (“. . .examples portrayed real examples that I could ponder.”) • Practice test questions (1 response) • Muscle constructions and hand model (2 response) “[These] were key to understanding muscle attachments and movements.” “I wish I had pasted muscles on the skeleton when I took Anatomy.” • Movies (2 response): “The movies and instructions in the atlas were very helpful in orientation and organization. After the movie it was easy to go to area we were focusing on and do the work.

35. Course eval comments – Spring 2011 (n=13) Types of activities/assignments contributing most to your experience and learning . . . • Feedback from instructor on BMAs (1 response): “. . . was very important in really thinking about what was going on with muscles and most importantly movements of the different areas of the body..” • Animations and interactive exercises (1 response)

36. Which types of activities or assignments contributed leastto your experience and learning in this course? The skeleton/muscle attachments. Although I wish I would have taken this class before I took BMS 301 (Anatomy), these constructions were looooong and quite time consuming. When I found out that they were not required after all . . .I felt that I put considerable time into cutting, glueing, etc. and in the end, I felt the time spent doing the constructions was busy work. “

37. Which types of activities or assignments contributed least to your experience and learning in this course? “It would be very helpful to have more movies with a person showing extension, flexion, abduction of hip . . .?! There was a movie explaining supination/pronation with a ruler that was very helpful. I wonder if you could show this with other areas of the body. Liked thumb animations. Should have a direct link on main index page for Index of all animations. If I wanted to look at an animation I had to hunt around for a way to get to the main animation index page.”

38. In general, what did you enjoy most about this course? “I really felt the whole course was great. I think the skeleton model with the youtube videos is a very creative and helpful way of teaching a online course.” “I enjoyed the interactive web lessons . . .” “I enjoyed constructing the muscles on my skeleton. The movies and animations were interesting and helpful . . .” “Liked the work with the skeleton . . .”

39. Overall comments “I thought this was a very hard class to only offer online. I think the instructor did an awesome job considering it was online, but i really wish CSU would offer it in a classroom setting as well.” “. . . Live chats were good, but it would have been nice if others would have participated in them. I didn't have any opportunity to bounce anything off of others in the class or hear their questions or what they were working on. It is helpful at times to be in class and just be able to listen and watch the teacher. He would have been able to show us the movements he was talking about.”

40. Overall comments “The skeleton and BMAs were most the most helpful to me.” “I found it very confusing trying to navigate exactly what he wanted from us in this course.” “Great course, especially helpful to have had hands on anatomy experience . . .” “Wish I would have found out earlier the constructions were not part of the grade . . . so as to avoid the wasted time/money on buying and constructing muscles onto the skeleton.”

42. Overall comments “Fun class that I learned from. However, the class would be much more beneficial if it was taught in real-life.”

43. (3.6, n=20) Course Evals Most Recent (4.5, n=20) (4.5, n=20)

44. (4.55, n=20) (4.25, n=20) (4.42, n=20)

45. (4.75, n=20) (4.68, n=20) (4.35, n=20)

46. (4.40, n=20)

47. 4.03 4.03 = lowest score in sequence re online components (Construction Atlas, You Tube videos, motion animations, interactive exercises, communicating with instructor). So students scored course mechanisms highly but STILL scored item on “effective way to learn” the lowest!

48. 3.51 3.51 = lowest score on survey . . . If you are going to rely on web–based material for construction, and construction is possibly the most important aspect of the class, navigation to and from Construction Atlas is important.

49. Overall comments: “Fun class that I learned from. However, the class would be much more beneficial if it was taught in real-life.”