Teaching physiology practical exercises, education solutions at the University of Antwerp

Physiology 2019 (Aberdeen, UK) (2019) Proc Physiol Soc 43, SA006

Research Symposium: Teaching physiology practical exercises, education solutions at the University of Antwerp

M. J. Demolder1

1. Physio-Pharmacology, University of Antwerp, Wilrijk, Belgium.

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Physiology practical exercises went through a transformation from a text book lab for a limited amount of students to a cloud based system with a large cohort of students, at the University of Antwerp. 21st century practical exercises and learning need to be flexible, adaptive and reflecting the state of the art. We changed our home build setups, transducers, software and data-acquisition into the hardware en software technology from ADInstruments (Dunedin, New-Zealand). Twenty ‘Ultimate Teaching Systems’ with multiple additional transducers were acquired. All practical exercise sessions are held in a specially build room, which provides world-class teaching facilities. The use of this facility has significantly improved the student learning experience. Students participate in groups of two or three students on one setup, which results in a total capacity of 60 students. Initially, practical exercises were performed on the LabTutor platform (ADInstruments). Subsequently a migration to LabTutor-Online and to a new cloud-based education platform, Lt-KuraCloud, was performed. To a limited extent, due to the cost of a license, pre-practical, practical, and post-practical work will now be done through this online software, which one can access at the practical lab room, and at any time in other places in the university, at home, etc. Due to budgetary constrain and the culture of cheap education in Belgium we still use LabTutor. Since the introduction in 2010 of this facility for undergraduate students of Pharmacology and Biomedical Sciences, the amount of participants has increased over three different faculties (Pharmaceutical-Biomedical-Veterinary Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Science Faculty). Including additional undergraduates in Biochemistry, Biotechnology, Veterinary Sciences, Revalidation Sciences and Physiotherapy, Biology and Bio-Engineering, about 1000 students. LabTutor and LabTutor-Online student and instructor feedback: Students greatly appreciate the full software support and short learning curve for the exercises, the online pre-lab and example data and the post-lab report facility and the link to patient scenarios. Experimenting on their own body, being able to prepare the lab online at home enhanced their understanding of the course. However, a mandatory prelab test is necessary. Former experiments on animals have been replaced by pre-recorded data, reducing the use of lab-animals to zero. Instructors appreciate the pre-lab and post-lab evaluation, the large amount of lab exercises with the possibilities to edit or make new exercises and the server facilities. Our facility received an excellent evaluation (‘State of the Art’) from the Belgian-Dutch Accreditation Commission. The physiology practical lab is a good promotion during the ‘open campus days’ for new students. After the discontinuing of LabTutor-Online we introduced Lt-KuraCloud. We already experienced a positive evaluation from the students with the physiology simulation program PhysioEx (Pearson Education), which uses the same concept of immediate feedback with multiple choice questions, as in Lt-KuraCloud. Students appreciate the blended learning with the theoretical courses and feedback features in Lt as a great add-on to the ex-cathedra courses. Engagement and learning outcomes increased. Instructors reacted positive on the analytics of the student work progress and the automatic grading facility. The fast and easy implementing of new lessons opens great opportunities. Transforming education through cloud-based technologies in a large modern facility enabled us to improve and increase the capacity of our physiology practical experiments. The cost of the licenses is still an issue. However, a coalition of the ‘willing professors’ to change their courses to a blended learning environment, will take some time.



Where applicable, experiments conform with Society ethical requirements.

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