Creation and Online Use of Patient-Centered Videos, Digital Storytelling, and Interactive Self-testing Questions for Teaching Pathophysiology.

Background: Nursing students need to not only understand the pathophysiological basis of disease but also acquire insight into its effects on patients and their families.

Purpose: Digital storytelling was used to engage students in self-directed, online learning, allowing them to identify with patients dealing with disease and its consequences.

Methods: Scripts were written and videos created that simulated patient experiences with select diseases of the gastrointestinal and respiratory systems as well as diabetes.

Use of Feedback-Oriented Online Exercises to Help Physiology Students Construct Well-Organized Answers to Short-Answer Questions.

Postsecondary education often requires students to use higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS) such as analysis, evaluation, and creation as they assess situations and apply what they have learned during lecture to the formulation of solutions. Summative assessment of these abilities is often accomplished using short-answer questions (SAQs). Quandary was used to create feedback-oriented interactive online exercises to help students strengthen certain HOCS as they actively constructed answers to questions concerning the regulation of 1) metabolic rate, 2) blood sugar, 3) erythropoiesis, and 4) stroke volume.

The use of limericks to engage student interest and promote active learning in an undergraduate course in functional anatomy.

The study of anatomy is a content-dense discipline with a challenging vocabulary. A mnemonic is a series of letters, a word, a phrase, or a rhyme that students can use when studying to facilitate recall. This project was designed to promote active learning in undergraduate students studying anatomy and physiology by asking them to create limericks based on course content and then to evaluate the limericks written by their peers for learning value, accuracy, style, and adherence to limerick characteristics.

The development of interactive online learning tools for the study of anatomy.

Background: The study of human anatomy is a core component of health science programs. However large student enrolments and the content-packed curricula associated with these programs have made it difficult for students to have regular access to cadaver laboratories.

Methods: Adobe Flash MXwas used with cadaver digital photographs and textbook-derived illustrations to develop interactive anatomy images that were made available to undergraduate health science students enrolled in first-year combined anatomy and physiology (ANP) courses at the University of Ottawa.