Peer Review Portfolio
Judy Provo-Klimek
  1. Focus Question
  2. Microscopic Anatomy and AP 710
    1. About the subject
    2. Connection with other courses/disciplines
    3. Course design
  3. Teaching Microscopic Anatomy
    1. My teaching style
    2. Personal goals for teaching Microscopic Anatomy, AP710
    3. My syllabus
  4. Implementation
    1. Lecture sessions
    2. Problem Based Learning activities
    3. Laboratory discussions
    4. Time spent outside class
  5. Results
    1. Evidence of student learning
    2. Suggestions from students
  6. Implications
    1. Reflection
    2. Planned changes
  7. Appendices
    1. Appendix A: Sample PBL Exercise
    2. Appendix B: Examinations
    3. Appendix C: Samples of student work
    4. Appendix D: Teaching Evaluation data

 

Course Design

The course includes three hours of lecture, one of which is set aside for problem-based learning (PBL), and six hours of laboratory per week. Lectures and PBL sessions are variable in format depending on the lecturer. There are three lecturers for the course and four laboratory instructors. The course coordinator has taught this course for many years.

For this course, we use a laboratory guide with color photographs taken from the laboratory specimens. This was written by the course coordinator, and illustrated with digital images made from existing slides from the course slide set, as well as from photos I have taken over the last two summers. Last summer the course coordinator produced a study guide for the students, which was used in place of a required textbook. We are still evaluating the use of this guide as a replacement for the required textbook.

The course has a strong multimedia component. We have been making increasing use of the college intranet and of the Internet for teaching in this course. Lecture presentations are available for review through links to the course home page. We have a commercial videodisc set with excellent histology images for use in teaching and for independent study by the students. There is also a computer-based slide program (accessible via computers through the college network) that the course coordinator and I developed over the past two years, that allows the student to review images and take quizzes over each topic in the course. We often direct students to web sites for additional illustrations and resources. This past year we made available to the students at cost a CD that contains the quiz portion of the slide program, and the course coordinator’s text and atlas, so that students could use them at home if desired.

The lecture format varies depending on the individual lecturer. I have been lecturing in this course since my arrival at KSU in the fall of 1996. I am responsible for approximately 13 of the 30 lecture sessions and 4 or 5 of the PBL sessions. We all use PowerPoint, and we all have handouts for the students for each lecture, included in a packet of materials they purchase at the beginning of the course. I prefer to use handouts in the PowerPoint handout format, as does one other lecturer, while the course coordinator uses an illustrated outline format.

The laboratory activities in this course usually change slightly from year-year, in response to student feedback and the course coordinator’s impressions of student response. Each laboratory has traditionally been preceded by a 30-minute pre-lab session during which another instructor and I show images similar to what will be seen in the laboratory as an orientation to the material. Because we have microscopes for only half of the students at one time, we divide the class into two groups to use the microscopes. Students in the laboratory have traditionally used the microscopes independently, with guidance provided by the pre-lab session, their laboratory guide, and circulating lab instructors. While one half is using the microscopes in the laboratory, the other half is engaged in various small-group activities. These have included question-answer sessions using projected images, independent small-group use of laserdisc players in the laboratory while their classmates used the scopes, and meeting with half of the class in the lecture hall for question-answer sessions using the laserdisc or computer program.

In the past, the course coordinator has taken small groups of students from the laboratory to a separate session with a multi-headed microscope, where he could orient them to the slides. This past year, he used a video camera and projector attached to a microscope and projected to monitors in the laboratory, to orient students to each slide as they began looking at it. In addition, we had to change the laboratory teaching this year slightly to accommodate my immobility after knee surgery. Because of the availability of the video microscope in lab, and my inability to move around in the lab, we eliminated the pre-lab session, and I led question-answer sessions with half the class in the lecture hall while the other half was using the microscopes. Because this had the added benefit of reducing the noise level in the laboratory while students were using the microscopes, and everyone liked the change, we continued that format for the rest of the semester, and will likely use the same format next year.

One problem with the course lecture and laboratory schedule is that laboratories sometimes precede the lecture for the same topic. This means that I sometimes feel that I am "lecturing" during the pre-lab sessions to give the students enough information for meaningful microscopic work. This problem may disappear the next time the course is taught because we are discussing a substantial schedule change to accommodate students’ requests to have gross anatomy laboratory in the afternoon – it is probable that all lectures will occur before corresponding laboratories.

Key assignments and student evaluations: Students are expected to attend all laboratories. This year students were required to take an un-graded quiz at the end of each laboratory; in the past, we have required that they make sketches of selected organs/tissues/cells at the end of each laboratory. Evaluations include four examinations and participation in the quizzes. Examinations have both written and laboratory components, and are developed by all of the instructors; anyone who has lectured during the portion covered by a given examination contributes written questions for the examination, and all of the instructors help develop the laboratory part on the day of the examination. Everyone helps grade the examinations. Most of our past examinations and sets of study questions are available to students via the course web page. In addition, students have access to exam files from their upper-class colleagues. Therefore, students should have many opportunities to see the question style of each instructor.

Each exam has both a written and a laboratory component. The class is divided in half, and half take the laboratory exam while the other half take the written exam. There is no set format for the written exam; each instructor is free to structure her or his part however she or he desires. Laboratory exams do have a set format and all of the course instructors help set the laboratory exam on the day of the exam. The typical lab exam has two sections: a set of 25 questions using microscopes and slides, in which students have 60 seconds per station and then 10 free minutes at the end to double-check problematic questions; and a set of 25 questions using images projected from laserdiscs onto monitors. This latter set of questions is not timed, and students can move around to answer them in any order they desire.

 
 

Last modified March 13, 2001