Our CTE Health Sciences instructors share clips of their virtual learning lessons.
In this photo, you see a student labeling the brain, this is usually done with skeletal clay models in the classroom
PBS students are solving the case of an unexplained death for college student Anna Garcia by learning about various careers in biomedical sciences. They use what they have learned to apply these skills to the case, such as Forensic Investigators (think CSI – processing evidence at scenes of unexplained deaths), Forensic Technicians (working in the field and lab to process potential crime scenes), Digital Forensic Investigators (analyzing digital components to a case), Fingerprint examiners, Blood Spatter Analysts, and DNA analysts.
They have analyzed hair samples, fingerprints, and cell phone records/social media posts. They’ve also evaluated presumptive tests to determine whether substances found at the scene MAY be blood, determined blood types, analyzed bloodstains to determine pattern types and calculated from what height blood drops fell. Finally, they’ve begun learning how multiple copies of DNA segments are produced, so that they can analyze DNA samples and determine to whom those samples belong.
MI students have brainstormed to identify various categories and examples of medical interventions used in daily life. They also became chief investigators for a potential outbreak of a mysterious illness on a college campus. They performed diagnostic tests and analyzed DNA sequence data to determine the source of the outbreak and make final diagnoses for each student seen at the college infirmary. After discovering that some of the students were diagnosed with bacterial meningitis (which is highly contagious), they investigated ways to prevent the disease from spreading to other people at the college. Students have also investigated different types of antibiotic therapy, discovered why providers (such as MDs, NPs, and PAs) use different antibiotics to treat different infections, and determined different ways that bacteria develop antibiotic resistance.
“Remote learning is different, often times challenging, and sometimes surprising. Every day is different! I really wanted to know who my students were, get to know them. To build those relationships, we spent some time getting to know one another.”
Getting to know my students was just the start. The hard part was to provide experiential learning without being in the lab! Fortunately, my colleague and I work very well together and we were able to support each other as we learned new ways of providing learning experiences for our students. Instead of lab work, we searched everywhere for virtual simulations, and created our own lab experiences. Screencastify soon became my best friend:
“My students worked collaboratively, despite being remote, to create Biometrics solutions for hypothetical companies such as hospitals and airports. Their solutions to everyday problems were very impressive, and I fully expect to be biometrically scanned by some of my student’s inventions sometime in the future!”
