Motivation
Students of medical programmes have to learn to imagine the different levels of an organ, including the tissue and cells, in 3D. In teaching, however, those levels are treated separately from each other and in 2D, so students do not learn to integrate those levels independently. Can an online module in which those levels come together remedy this deficit?
Imaging techniques in medical science are rapidly developing towards 3D visualisation, but the teaching is not yet geared to this. Students are asked to learn to integrate levels like anatomy (the organ), histology (tissue) and cell biology with each other on their own, but they are not given any tools to do so. Students indicate that the task is too difficult and sometimes expect impossible imagination.
Desired solution
Ilse Arnoldussen, Ineke van der Zee, Marc Vorstenbosch and Maarten van den Bosch are therefore investigating whether a Brightspacemodule can change this. The module helps students with 3D animations, practical images and a game element in the necessary 3D visualisation. For this, the tissue level, histology, is the starting point for that imaging, as this is a level in the organs from which you can easily zoom in and out to other levels.
Action plan
The team, led by Arnoldussen, will begin the study with an exploratory literature review on the impact of similar online tools in tissue education. The necessary visual material, animations and practical examples, will then be collected. Based on this, the software for the module will be designed and built in collaboration with the 3D lab at Radboudumc and the Educational Design and Technology team at Radboud University. Next, fellow professors will start working with the pilot module in their lectures, after which they and their students will provide feedback. On this basis, the team can work to remove early obstacles from the module and give it a permanent place in medical teaching.