Project Tools Used: iMovie and iBooks were used to create this project. Students cannot bring notebooks in nor take materials out of the hands-on, practice laboratory for biosafety reasons, making an iBook a natural choice in developing a lab resource/notebook. iMovies are used to demonstrate laboratory procedures.
Project Summary: The UNMC CAHP Medical Laboratory Science (MLS) Program educates approximately 65 students MLS students each year. The education of MLS students includes a 13-week hands-on, practice laboratory phase on both the Omaha and Kearney campuses. The challenge for the MLS program is delivering an equivalent laboratory experience in an effective manner on both campuses. An evaluation of the existing methods for presenting the written procedures, demonstration videos, color plates, etc. needed to be accessed by students during the labs demonstrated existing material was sufficient but did reveal the learner’s process of locating/utilizing all required resources and materials to be cumbersome and frustrating at times.
The Infectious Disease course in the High School Alliance Program taught by MLS faculty allows the program to explore the use of an iBook for consolidating all learner required materials for lab sessions into one resource before implementing iBooks on a larger scale in multiple laboratory courses. Currently, students utilize printed materials and a supplied iPad to access materials from multiple resources. Multitasking and utilizing various documents on the iPad has challenged learners and increased extraneous cognitive load. Our goal is for students not to spend valuable laboratory time and cognitive resources locating the information needed to complete the labs but instead focus on the actual lab experience. This pilot project is intended to help develop a similar iBook for MLS students on a much larger scale.
Speaker
Marnie Imhoff, MBA, MLS(ASCP)CM, Division of Medical Laboratory Science, College of Allied Health Professions