Anatomy and Embryology Goettingen - 2013 Seminar

Online Embryology for Medicine and Science

Dr Mark Hill
School of Medical Sciences, The University of NSW, Australia.

6 December 2013      Dept. of Anatomy and Embryology, University of Goettingen     Translate page - German

Introduction

This presentation will describe my experiences in developing online embryology teaching for medical (large group) and science (small group) student groups.

Medicine (large computer lab)	Science (small computer lab)

<mediaplayer width='500' height='450' image="http://php.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/images/4/4e/Human_blastocyst_day_1-6.jpg">File:Human_blastocyst_day_3-6.mp4</mediaplayer> About this Movie Blastocyst Day 3-6 Movie shows in vitro development of a human morula to blastocyst stage occurring between day 3 and day 6 post-fertilisation. (More? Movies)

Embryology Online

Embryology Offline - web material released also as CD (1997) and then DVD (2007) format.

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  pre-1997

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  1997

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  2001

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  2004

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  2007

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  2009 - Wiki Format

Technology Timeline
The changing technology environment we have experienced in the last 50 years, and more recently in the last 20 "internet years".
1961 - Microfiche - miniaturise data, images and text. 1962 - Slide carousel projector - transport and display content easily. 1960s - Overhead projectors - prepared and flexible in-class. 1977 - Apple computers. 1981 - IBM computers. 1982 - Microsoft MS-DOS. 1990 - Powerpoint - electronic slides. 1991 - Quicktime - multimedia platform for images and animations. 1993 - Mosaic first web browser. 1994 - Netscape Navigator web browser. 1995 - Internet Explorer web browser. 1996 - Flash - multimedia platform for images and animations.	1997 - Embryology site first online. 1998 - Google internet search. 1998 - Blackboard course management system. 2001 - Wikipedia online encyclopaedia running on Mediawiki. 2002 - Moodle course management system. 2004 - Facebook social networking service. 2004 - Embryology website reformatted as 3 column webpages. 2006 - Twitter microblogging service. 2009 - Embryology site transferred to new wiki format. 2010 - iBooks e-book application for iPads. 2012 - ??

New Wiki Format 2009

• familiar structure and layout. (the Wiki format)
• easy to print and search. (print this current page)
• resolved student navigation issues. (every page has the same navigation and access to student pages)
• contributions by researchers staff and students. (Researcher Contributions)
• current research easily added and used by students. (Blastocyst Day 3-6 Movie)

Why Wikis?

The Software - Wikipedia had been around for a few years and many students were commonly using it initially as a dictionary rather than encyclopaedia. MediaWiki is the database software which runs this application on the web and is separate from the content hosted in Wikipedia. The Support - MediaWiki is freely available, stable, regularly updated, and has a large group of developers maintaining and making many useful applications (extensions) within this software framework. The Interaction - The format can be used interactively by teacher and student, both can construct, distribute and share knowledge. This can be done easily anytime and anywhere with an internet connection and editing can be restricted to only those designated users and hierarchically within those users. Importantly, an extension allows users access through the familiar UNSW Zpass system. Visibility - You need to see what is being done! The embryology educational material has since its early development been on the internet and available to all. Learning management systems (LMS) are excellent for what they do, manage courses and students. My experience is that students don't generally like LMS and use it only because they have to. Most are LMS are commercial packages ($$) and their content is generally hidden (which can be important for security/copyright etc) and not easily shared.

Browser used	Browser operating systems

Teaching Contact Hours

Trends in anatomy disciplines contact teaching hours based on data from USA survey.

‎‎Human Development Page | Play

About this graph

Online survey were constructed to gather basic information about gross anatomy, microscopic anatomy, neuroscience/neuroanatomy, and embryology courses. 2009 total of 130 allopathic and 25 osteopathic medical schools in USA. Number of responses (Gross anatomy 65, Microscopic anatomy 45, Neuroscience/Neuroanatomy 31, Embryology 43) Reference University of New South Embryology Contact hours Medicine - (lecture and practicals, including foundations and phase 2) is 24 hours. Science - Lectures 20, Practicals 48.

New Embryology Topics
Less contact time, but a growing list of new clinically relevant topics. Assisted Reproductive Technology (In vitro fertilization) Stem Cells Molecular Development (genetics, epigenetics, inheritance) Prenatal Diagnosis (genetic, ultrasound, MRI, fetal cells in maternal) Fetal Surgery (prenatal medicine)

Medicine Large Class

	Both lectures and laboratories in Medicine and Science can be prepared and presented online. (Lecture, Practical) Online textbooks are directly linked within the classes. (UNSW links) Additional general notes are available for students to use as topic background. (2012) An extensive glossary of terms is provided to aid understanding of terminology. (Glossary, mesoderm) In development everything changes, even the names of structures! Current related clinical and research data, movies and findings can be provided to show relevance of topics. (Research movies) Quizzes available to test student knowledge. (Foundations Quiz) Content can also be modified and used for external education purposes. (Postgraduate Medicine - Maternal-Fetal Medicine Trainees - Renal, K12 - Brain Awareness Week 2012)
Medicine practicals computer use (2012)	Online textbook access (2011)

Medicine - Independent Learning Projects

Cardiac Embryology

The Independent Learning Project (ILP) is intended to provide UNSW medical students with a period of in-depth study that engenders an approach to medicine that is constantly questioning and self-critical. (About ILP)

• 2006 - Carnegie Stage Embryo Animations educational project.

2006 ILP Movies
Shown below are the animations generated from the serial sections of a Human embryo (week 8, Carnegie stage 22). Click the quicktime or Flash lingo to see the rotating animations. Note Flash animations do not play on iPads.
Embryology - 1 Jun 2024        Expand to Translate   Google Translate - select your language from the list shown below (this will open a new external page) العربية | català | 中文 | 中國傳統的 | français | Deutsche | עִברִית | हिंदी | bahasa Indonesia | italiano | 日本語 | 한국어 | မြန်မာ | Pilipino | Polskie | português | ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਦੇ | Română | русский | Español | Swahili | Svensk | ไทย | Türkçe | اردو | ייִדיש | Tiếng Việt    These external translations are automated and may not be accurate. (More? About Translations)  ‎‎Systems Page | Play  ‎‎GIT Stage 22 Page | Play  ‎‎Cardiovascular Page | Play  ‎‎Stage 22 Neural Page | Play  ‎‎Urogenital Page | Play  ‎‎Skeletal Page | Play These 3d movies were part of the UNSW Medical degree Independent Learning Project (ILP) prepared by Aashish Kumar (2006).

• 2009 - Cardiac Embryology educational project. (Project Background, Project Discussion)

2009 ILP Tutorial
Self-directed Learning. This project was designed to allow students to work through heart development online using modules designed to teach at 3 levels of understanding, using the "traffic light" approach, (green is easiest, red is hardest). Each module through the same timeline and firstly identifies the learning objectives, then how long it will take to complete the module.
Cardiac Embryology     Begin Basic     Begin Intermediate     Begin Advanced   This website is an educational resource designed to teach human cardiac embryology and is a Medicine ILP project carried out by Phoebe Norville. Heart development represents an important area of both embryological and clinical studies, predominantly due to the high incidence of congenital heart disease in the community. Therefore this website aims to teach cardiac embryology to students of all ages with varying degrees of knowledge in the area. The module contains three different levels: Basic - begin here if you are new to heart embryology (high school level) Intermediate - begin here if you have some background in heart embryology (university level) Advanced - begin here after you have completed the earlier levels and have a good background in heart embryology (university level) Basic Heart Development Timeline (weeks of development are shown w3 to w7)

Science Small Class

Science lectures and laboratories in Science can be prepared and presented online. (Lecture, Practical) Online textbooks are directly linked within the classes. (UNSW links) Additional general notes are available for students to use as topic background. (2012) Glossary Group Projects Earlier group projects in the Science courses had been preparing a poster and a final presentation to the class. The online projects also require presentations during their preparation and include a peer assessment process.

Project Pedagogy
These projects extend far beyond the original "research poster concept". It requires ongoing participation from both the teacher and the student, if you are not prepared to have an ongoing contribution, do not even consider setting this type of assessment.
Students Groups work independently throughout the semester on a specific topic the group has selected within the general topic set by the teacher. Groups are assigned randomly by the teacher, do not want "friends" and "non-friends" groups. Online work consists of the "project page" and the "discussion page" where student online interaction occurs. Face-to-face time is allowed each week in the last 10 minutes of practical classes. Projects are also presented to the class at a "work in progress" phase. Each student carries out a "online written assessment" of all other projects late in the semester, when groups are near completion. Groups then collate and use these "online written assessments" to edit their own project.	Teacher Designs specific assessment criteria. Designs the general topic and allocates groups. Provides handouts and brief tutorials each week in practical class time on: basic editing, copyright/plagiarism , reference sources and referencing and uploading images. Provides regular in-class advice, online comments and email support to queries and feedback. Analyses project "edit history" and "discussion" comments to identify individual students not contributing to the project. Analyses the final submitted project providing specific online feedback.

• Students also submit individual assessments each week online based upon the practical class they had just completed.
• Listed below are the final group projects (4-5 students/group) submitted between 2009 and 2011 in embryology (ANAT2341) and cell biology (ANAT3231) courses.

Embryology Group Projects

Project Topics
How do you select a topic? These project topics supplement content covered in lectures and practicals. Student can apply their understanding of concepts in development to topics that show relevance of embryology research to both basic sciences and clinical medicine.
Animal Models - Have been use historically to understand human development. More recently they have been used to understand human disease mechanisms and the potential application of stem cells. The students learn to identify the common features of development in different species as well as the differences between species. Diagnostic Techniques - Applies an understanding of the tools available to understand abnormal development. Focussing on how the tools work, what they measure and what they show. The students learn to firstly identify features of normal development, before they can understand how (and why) abnormal development can be detected. Abnormalities - These are a range of (human) developmental abnormalities with a range of developmental origins and affecting different systems. An understanding of normal development, from the course, is required to interpret specific abnormalities. The students learn to identify the main origins of abnormalities (genetic, environmental and unknown), the history of our understanding and how research has progressed in the topic area.

• 2009 - Animal Models: Rabbit | Fly | Zebrafish | Mouse | Project 5 - Frog | Related page - Animal Development
• 2010 - Diagnostic Techniques: Ultrasound | Chorionic villus sampling | Amniocentesis | Percutaneous Umbilical Cord Blood Sampling | Fetal Fibronectin | Maternal serum alpha-fetoprotein | Related page - Prenatal Diagnosis
• 2011 - Abnormalities: Turner Syndrome | DiGeorge Syndrome | Klinefelter's Syndrome | Huntington's Disease | Fragile X Syndrome | Tetralogy of Fallot | Angelman Syndrome | Friedreich's Ataxia | Williams-Beuren Syndrome | Duchenne Muscular Dystrolphy | Cleft Palate and Lip | Student Group Projects

Student Contributions
The assessment criteria requires "an ongoing contribution", how do you identify this? All pages track all edits made. Using this "edit history" log student contributions can be logged and quantified. A quick audit of this log (simply pasted into a spreadsheet to sort, count and graph) does not identify directly what has been edited, though this can also be done both by see and comparison of content added/removed. It does identify the "low contributors" to both the project and discussion pages. An intergroup comparison can also identify whether some groups are having problems with the work. An edit audit carried out early enough in the project process, allows both teacher and student to identify this issue. An equal edit contribution would be shown by an even distribution of slices in the pie diagrams.
2011 Embryology Projects Student Edits Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Group 6 Group 7 Group 8 Group 9 Group 10 Group 11 All Groups (1-11) edits

Peer Assessment

How do you engage the students in the assessment process? Students present their project in the class and have a set "soft deadline" for completing the project and at this deadline students stop the work on their own project. An individual assessment item is set where each student looks, using the assessment criteria, at all the other projects. This assessment is pasted on the project discussion page and the students own page. The following week, groups then collate these assessments and have the opportunity to improve their own project based upon these comments. Note the process also makes the students look at the other projects and see what is "good" and "bad" and use this when they return to work on their own project.

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Cite this page: Hill, M.A. (2024, June 1) Embryology Anatomy and Embryology Goettingen - 2013 Seminar. Retrieved from https://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php/Anatomy_and_Embryology_Goettingen_-_2013_Seminar

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© Dr Mark Hill 2024, UNSW Embryology ISBN: 978 0 7334 2609 4 - UNSW CRICOS Provider Code No. 00098G