1. Increasing Student Engagement in Anatomy and Physiology Labs
Presented by
Dr. Leslie Rios
and Dr. Nilanjana Caballero

2. Background
Student opinion surveys indicate students feel passing around models is boring.
Instructors find them boring too!
Research indicates increased student engagement improves retention and success:
image:

3. Question: Will adding active lab components to each lab improve student interest and engagement?
Goals
Increase student engagement
Apply material beyond the model
Improve retention and success

4. Changes to the lab curriculum
Lab Content
Added Protocol
Directional terms
Organ systems
Cytology
Histology
Integumentary
Nervous system
Special Senses
Skeletal
Muscles
Fetal pigs (no cutting)
Cut pig mid-sagittal
E, threads, cheek cell, mitosis
Game with laminated sheets
Hair, fingerprints, Biore strips
Reaction time, Brains
PTC, eye charts, hearing, sensory, eye dissection
Bone labels, pig feet
Pig dissections

5. Let’s Try it out: Working in groups of 2-3 complete the following activities and record your results in your lab manual.
Two-point discrimination test
Tactile localization test
Snellen eye chart test
Astigmatism test
Blind spot test
Rinne test
PTC test

6. Results: Quantitative data Qualitative data Lab exit quiz
Questions pulled from lab practical
Qualitative data
Self report on interest/understanding
Favorite/least favorite labs
Lab experience (expectations)

7. Lab Exit Quiz
Q1: Identify stage of mitosis Q2: Describe main events Q3: Draw cheek cell at 100X Q4: Name the anatomical structure for fingerprints Q5: Name the function of that structure

8. Results: Two-Sample t-Test

9. Results: Retention

10. Self reporting 1-5 how did each experience hold interest and help understanding
Passing models
Fetal pig dissection
Sheep brain dissection
Cow eye dissection
Staining cheek cells

11. Self reporting on understanding

12. Which lab was your favorite? Which lab was your least favorite?
63 students answered this question.
39 (62%) answered dissection was their favorite
5 (8%) answered dissection was their least favorite
Remainder answered other labs for most and least favorite
This data is from both groups who had active or regular labs.
Even regular labs enjoyed the one sheep brain dissection they did at a ratio of 8:1

13. Why did they like dissection the best?
It gave real life examples
It was hands on
It helped me learn in depth
Liked pointing out the parts
It was interesting and I learned more

14. Why did the 5 students dislike the dissection?
It smelled bad (4 out of 5)
1 person: it does not help
Take away: Majority of students in both regular and active labs chose dissection as their favorite lab.

15. Is the lab meeting expectations?

16. Future direction Possible changes
Address the smell
Put more active questions on the final