The Technique
Viewing slides through a microscope has been impossible while we have been outside of our laboratory learning spaces. When examining plant specimens during in-person labs, my learners could use botany atlases, textbooks, wall charts, their teaching assistants, and myself for immediate feedback as they worked to confirm the identity of structures that demonstrate their knowledge of a plant’s form and function.
Now, thanks to some work I did over the summer digitizing the materials our learners view as they complete lab manual activities, our botany microscope slides are readily accessible on MyCourseLink. Each week, my own work is combined with additional images found through Flikr, saving time and developing an enhanced presentation. Now, I have a set of resources that I am confident will help students build the mental images required to fully understand a plant’s internal workings and complex life cycles.
To have students work with the slide collections, I have built H5P drag-and-drop activities so they can verify their lab manual solutions in real time as they work through the lab manual slide labelling activities. Learners each get instant and personal assurances they have correctly identified the structures present on slides and diagrams, rather than just copying the ‘right answers’ given by others. These activities help students adopt appropriate terminology and relational thinking required for complicated life cycles and physiology later in the course. The students become comfortable with simple structures plants require in their multifaceted processes.
How I Use It
- I review the lab manual activity for a specific slide and mark down the relevant terms that are most important right now (i.e. our bold-face terms).
- Next, I search online for available slide images that I am allowed to use (e.g. cc licensed, public domain, etc.) that are suitable for the identification activity I need them to practice.
- When a specific image is not available or not quite right, I create one from scratch or tweak what is available (e.g. add label lines).
- It is a good idea here to sketch out what the final product will look like (i.e. the one the learner can complete). Your simple outline will make Step 5 MUCH quicker and hassle free.
- Now, it’s time to H5P! I choose the ‘Drag and Drop’ module option, where a learner can drag a list of structures (or functions) to any number of labels on a slide image
A valuable aspect of this process is to include overall feedback (e.g. Review pages 56-62 in the lab manual) that will appear to learners if they get something wrong when they do an activity in the course.
Once completed, I embed my work into MyCourseLink, typically right after the lab materials the student have just completed. It’s important to assure learners that these activities are all about them — to help them check their knowledge and progress. The activities are never for marks. The suggestions given to learners are to work through the l