Digital Histology Interest Group or DHIG

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  • 1.  Digital Histology and 3D Printing

    Posted 06-23-2014 08:47

    Hi, I've been offering an online Histology course with still frame lab images for about 10 years now for The University of Texas at El Paso.  The course was originally offered using WebCT and now uses Blackboard as the course management system.  I teach the course in fall, spring and in one month during the first summer term.  I have a paper published in eMentor (http://www.e-mentor.edu.pl/artykul/index/numer/26/id/582) in 2008 that looks closely at how to offer non-proctored exams online and employs formative assessment strategies to enhance learning. 

    My current interest though is in a different direction and focuses on the use of 3D printers to make tactile learning objects so that students who are blind or visually impaired can sense by touch and feel what sighted students see when viewing slide material with a microscope.  A paper published a few months ago in the Journal of Blindness Innovation and Research (https://nfb.org/images/nfb/publications/jbir/jbir14/jbir040102.html) shows how some jpeg files of histology images as well as gross anatomy views can be made into stl files for 3D printing and then made into tactile learning objects.

    Not sure if 3D printed tactile learning objects are as useful at the medical or dental school level but I think they may help change how we interpret "reasonable accommodations" for undergraduate and high school students who are blind or visually impaired. I'm interested in getting feedback on some of these ideas as well as connecting with colleagues who may wish to collaborate in the production of 3D printed material.

    I'm now retired and live in Ocean City, NJ but have been teaching online for UT El Paso for over 10 years. While at UT El Paso, I was a tenured professor in the Biological Sciences Department and also was the Associate VP for Instructional Technology.  Now that I am retired and have no administrative responsibilities, I am amazed at how much time one has for doing what you want to do.

     Mike

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    Michael Kolitsky
    Online Adjunct Professor
    The University of Texas at El Paso
    Ocean City NJ
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  • 2.  RE: Digital Histology and 3D Printing

    Posted 06-24-2014 09:25

     Mike

    Your post is simply fascinating to me!  The article on how to offer non-proctored exams online is one of the best I have ever seen.  I have read it twice this morning because I have been managing and directing an online histology course for the University of South Carolina (from my home 100 miles from the USC campus in Columbia, SC) since Spring 2011.  I went to your article online and discovered the e-mentor journal published by the Warsaw School of Economics.   It is a new find for me.  I am amazed at the quality of the few articles I have read.  I see it is a viable journal today with much to recommend it.  I see that the archived articles go back to 2003. At www.e-mentor.edu.pl I discovered one can choose either English or the Polish language.  For any on this discussion group that may be looking for what appears to be an outstanding peer-reviewed open access journal this journal is definitely one that should be considered for reading a publishing.

    Your article on  analysis of non-proctored anti-cheating and formative assessment strategies got me to thinking about how I have been administering online exams in my histology course.  We do provide practice quizzes (your term quizlets) but I have not attempted a correlation of students taking them with outcomes in exams and grades.  Your timing seems to be rather short per question.  However, as you discovered and stated, the better students complete the exams within the time limit.  In my course I provide low stakes quizzes for each module of content.  I provide an average of 1 and 1/2 minutes for multiple choice with or without static histology images.  Each quiz has a second part that is testing on specimens provided to students as virtual slides.  For those we provide an average of 3 minutes per question.  Compared to your time allocations it seems excessive, yet, we get pretty good item analysis for most of our questions showing that the distracters are working effectively.  Your article challenges me to rethink the timing of our quizzes and exams.  Even so, as you stated, from students who do not perform well we receive complaints that they do not have sufficient time to complete their exams.

    Thanks for entering this digital histology interest group.  After reading your short bio, you have much to offer as one of our senior and very active yet citizens in our association.  I look forward to more dialogue and interaction about online courses.

    Bob
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    Robert Ogilvie
    Professor Emeritus, Medical University of South Carolina

    Visiting Professor, University of South Carolina
    Mount Pleasant SC
    843-693-1065843-693-1065
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  • 3.  RE: Digital Histology and 3D Printing

    Posted 06-25-2014 09:50

    Hello Bob, what a nice way to start the day reading your comments about my eMentor paper.  I should add that the data comes out of an early decision about how to test online in a non-proctored manner yet somehow discourage cheating.  I felt that if I could not keep them from cheating, I would let them cheat by having all exams be open book but tightly timed.  I've found that for upper division Histology students, 25 - 30 seconds is enough time for students who know the material well to answer questions mostly in multiple choice format.  Two years after publishing in eMentor I had the opportunity to teach at Washington College as a Visiting Professor for a year.  I taught General Biology, Cell Biology and Developmental Biology and used the practice quiz method in smaller classes in which testing was proctored and not timed.  You can check out a presentation I made at the Virginia Tech Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy in early 2011 (http://www.nextgenemedia.com/VTpres2011/assets/fallback/index.html) to see again how the use of practice quizzes increased student performance on exams but more importantly for me, it made me see that by knowing how many times a student did the practice quizzes and for how long a student took taking those practice quizzes, I could have a verifiable estimate for how long a student was studying for my course.  This is a big help when discussing with a student how they could improve their scores on future exams.  It was during this period that I also came across a paper in Science by Karpicke and Blunt - "Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping" at https://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6018/772.abstract and also an article about Roddy Roediger at http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/02/how-to-teach-better from a Harvard conference on better teaching which also talked about his research that indicated more testing and less studying should be done to increase student learning.  I emailed both Karpicke and also Roediger to ask if my method of providing practice quizzes was a form of retrieval practice and both replied they thought that it was.  This was quite encouraging for me because I was not trained in pedagogy but my gut instincts about how to test online under non-proctored conditions led me quite unknowingly to the work of Karpicke and Blunt and also Roediger which added to my confidence that I was on the right track to understanding better how to use practice quizzes as a tool for learning. 

    Hope this background information provides a better understanding of why I now rely on practice quizzes which I call "Quizlets" as a way to help students learn while also providing me with a way to gather data from Blackboard to support this approach.

    Mike


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    Michael Kolitsky
    Online Adjunct Professor
    The University of Texas at El Paso
    Ocean City NJ
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Digital Histology and 3D Printing

    Posted 06-25-2014 10:57
    Mike,
    This is very helpful and I trust others will find it helpful also.
    Bob

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    Robert Ogilvie
    Professor Emeritus
    Medical University of South Carolina
    Mount Pleasant SC
    843-693-1065843-693-1065
    -------------------------------------------


    Original Message