University of Toronto
Project Description
The Human Biology in Action sandbox project closely builds on a previous research and innovation project at the University of Toronto (U of T), entitled Active Learning Opportunities through Virtual Lab Curricular Integration. Our original goal was to extend the availability of Labster resources across more courses and support an instructor-led research project to evaluate the student experience.
The project was successful in extending our capacity and building a community network of instructors interested in exploring this domain. A research project was successfully launched, and we were able to collect data across four courses. Data analysis is now complete and the instructors have prepared a journal paper based on this project.
We have continued interest and several projects and events planned for the coming months. The sandbox initiative has been successful as it has helped us to sustain our momentum in exploration of use of virtual reality in educational applications.
Team Description
This sandbox project extended work already underway at the university. Collaboration was undertaken by three U of T instructors at St. George campus and three staff members from Online Learning Strategies Portfolio who provided administrative coordination. A Labster specialist provided consultations for virtual lab content integration, logistics, and assessment components.
The project team included the project lead, Dr. Laurie Harrison, director, Online Learning Strategies, and three collaborating instructors:
- Dr. Dawn Kilkenny, assistant professor, Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering
- Dr. Maria Papaconstantinou, associate professor, Human Biology Program
- Dr. Ron Wilson, associate professor, Human Biology Program
This multi-expertise group has collaborated for over a year to identify relevant labs, design course curriculums, address IT integration aspects, implement Labster virtual labs in six undergraduate courses and one undergraduate summer research program, and evaluate the pilot phase of the project. With the eCampusOntario Sandbox licences, in addition to additional capacity available through the previous research and innovation grant, we were able to accommodate 315 students over the course of the summer semester of 2017–18.
Online Learning Strategies (OLS) staff were in contact with the collaborating instructors and Labster specialists to follow up with their progress of IT integration and pedagogical planning and to identify and address potential issues. The following meetings were coordinated and organized by OLS staff, along with ongoing communication on project activities:
- August 2017: Addressing technical integration of Labster virtual labs within Blackboard; sharing new course syllabuses.
- October 2017: Sharing feedback and early lessons learned.
- February 2018: Round table to discuss learning benefits of Labster virtual labs and potential next steps (summer 2019 and beyond).
Faculty develo