AUC Academic Conference 'From Virtual to Reality' The University of
Queensland 1996AUC Academic Conference 'From Virtual to Reality' The University of
Queensland 1996
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Paper Title:
The Classroom in the Virtual Teaching Hospital
Presenter:
Mrs May Wong, The University of Sydney
Authors:
Mrs May Wong, Lecturer, Dr Edward Hettiaratchi, Senior Lecturer,
Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences,
The University of Sydney.Ms Christine Anne Brown, PhD student,
Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong
Keywords: Multimedia, Teaching
Faculty area: Health Sciences
Introduction
The Virtual Teaching Hospital (VTH) classroom has been developed as an alternative means of providing on the computer, material which would otherwise have been presented in lectures in the Department of Biomedical Sciences within the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney. The classroom is a component of the larger VTH project in which patient case studies are used to illustrate the relevance of the basic sciences to the clinical practice of health professionals. (Hettiaratchi et. al. 1996). Students can access the classroom to gain information on a specific topic per se or to further their understanding of a particular aspect of one of the case studies in the VTH.
The constructivist principles of learning (Driver & Oldham, 1986;. Black et al . 1994) utilised in the construction of the VTH is carried through to the development of the classroom. As part of this learning strategy, students determine their own goals, select the appropriate learning resources and decide on the sequence and pace of their learning. They also evaluate their own learning progress.
The Design Framework for the VTH Classroom
The main aim of the VTH classroom template is to support the needs of the Department of Biomedical Sciences to provide the knowledge base for the clinical and professional subjects in the Faculty of Health Sciences. This content must also be presented at different levels of complexity to cater for the range of courses offered in the Faculty. This led to the following design brief:
(1) The content should be organised in a manner that would allow it to be used as partial or full replacement of lectures in the subject. The resulting reduction in the formal face-to-face hours would increase the time available for independent study.
(2) The content should be presented at different levels of complexity to cater for students with varying degrees of background knowledge in the basic sciences and to meet different requirements for the range of courses offered in the Faculty.
(3) The content should be organised in small chunks that can be used in relation to the patient case studies within the VTH.
(4) The clinical relevance of the content material is to be indicated and where possible linked to the patient case studies.
(5) The material is to be presented in a variety of ways to provide multiple perspectives of the same material. This is to foster cognitive flexibility (Spiro and Jehng, 1990) and to cater for differences in learning styles of the students.
(6) There should be provision for student self-assessment.
The Design of the VTH Classroom
The design of the VTH classroom takes advantage of the ability in interactive multimedia to present the same material in different arrangements with relative ease. It was developed in HyperCard for use on Macintosh computers.
After students select the subject they wish to explore, they are asked to nominate a level of difficulty. They can choose from "Fundamental", "Intermediate" or "Advanced". They make their next choice from the menu screen seen in Figure 1.
Navigation links to other sites in VTH are along the top of the screen. Other appropriate buttons enable navigation within the classroom as shown in Figure 1
Students are asked to select a topic or a view
Selection of a topic provides access to the following
· Objectives
· Content
· Summary overview
· Concept maps or flow charts
· Self-assessment questions
There are links between learning objectives and the relevant screens in the content section. A similar arrangement links the summary points to the content.
The main features of a screen in the content section are shown in Figure 2.
Clicking on the button labelled "More Info" brings up a pop-up field which provides any one of the following:
· a more detailed explanation of the text,
· an example,
· an analogy,
· an activity.
Clicking on the Button labelled "Clinical Relevance" brings up a textoid showing the clinical applications of the topic and references to the case studies where applicable.
Other buttons to play movies, animations and sounds are also included where appropriate.
In any linear compilation, there are different representational forms of information. The basic principle behind the classroom template is that clusters of these representations would provide students with multiple views of the content. For example, if all the diagrams from a learning module are extracted, they provide a diagrammatic representation of the content. Views isolated are diagrams, examples, pictures, definitions, analogies, concepts and questions. Access to these are provided by buttons on the right of the screen as shown in both Figures 1 and 2.
Selection of a view provides an alternative perspective of the contents. For example, clicking on the "Diagrams" icon brings the students to a series of screens where they can open a number of the diagrams This allows them to see many diagrams simultaneously rather than individually as in the topic section. A similar arrangement is provided for viewing examples, pictures analogies and concept maps. The glossary button opens a subset of the VTH glossary stack with terms restricted to the subject being studied. The question button allows access to self-assessment questions which students can use to challenge their understanding of the content and can be attempted at any stage.
Use of the VTH classroom template by staff
The onus and challenge is for staff to organise content in a manner that would provide flexibility of use for students. Staff are provided with a palette of appropriate construction tools to enter content in the various sections. Although, the arrangement of content in the topic section is sequential and resembles the presentation in typical lectures, much more organisation is required to provide material at different levels of complexity and from multiple perspectives. Decisions have also to be made as whether information is placed in the main text field on screen or the "More Info" pop-up field. However, there are also opportunities to include animations, movies and sounds and to make learning much more interactive and exciting.
Use of the VTH classroom by students.
The ability to access information from multiple perspectives allows students to select and organise material in a way that best suits their learning styles. They are provided with an on-screen note book in which to record this.
As with the VTH template it is hoped that in future the classroom template would be offered to students to generate their own learning modules. This would be an even more powerful method of applying the constructivist principles of learning.
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References
Black, J. B., Thalheimer, W., Wilder, H., de Soto, D., & Picard, P. (1994). Constructivist Design of Graphic Computer Simulations. In M. R. Simonson, N. Maushak, & K. Abu-Omar (Ed.), 1994 Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, (pp. 63-67). Nashville, TN: Iowa State University.
Driver, R., & Oldham, V. (1986). A Constructivist Approach to Curriculum Development in Science. Studies in Science Education, 13, 105-122.
Spiro, R., & Jehng, J. (1990). Cognitive Flexibility and Hypertext: Theory and Technology for the Nonlinear and Multidimensional Traversal of Complex Subject Matter. In D. Nix & R. Spiro (Eds.), Cognition, Education, and Multimedia: Exploring Ideas in High Technology (pp. 163-205). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Acknowledgements
The project team wishes to acknowledge contributions made by:
- Ms Nancy Tam, Higher Education Officer, Department of Biomedical Sciences
- Mr Jayachandran, Higher Education Officer, Department of Biomedical Sciences
- Ms Marlene Knight, Cockatoo Graphics
Mrs May Wong, Lecturer,
Department of Biomedical Sciences,
Faculty of Health Sciences,
The University of Sydney.
P.O. Box 170
LIDCOMBE NSW 2141Phone: (02) 6466289
Fax: (02) 6466520e-mail: M.Wong@cchs.su.edu.au
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