BUILDING A LABORATORY SKILLS VIDEO REPOSITORY FOR MOLECULAR BIOSCIENCES

BACKGROUND Laboratory skills are essential in the biological sciences workforce (Smith, Grando, & Fotinatos, 2016), and virtual laboratories have become increasingly prevalent. Instructors need support in their transition to online delivery (Rasheed, Kamsin, & Abudllah., 2020), and there is a paucity of standardised guidelines for developing laboratory training videos. AIMS This project aims to address how students engage with online laboratory training and inform the future production of laboratory videos. DESIGN AND METHODS Laboratory videos were produced for a blended microbiology course in 2019 (390 students). Video analytics were collected from July-November 2019, student performance was assessed through laboratory examinations (Wang, Huston, Johanesen, Lloyd, & Waller, 2018), and student perceptions monitored through course surveys (26% response rate). RESULTS Six 5-minute videos had 2500 views, with >160 hours of total watch time. Average video viewing duration was >70% and 25% of viewers used English subtitles. Audience retention for technique demonstration scenes was significantly higher than other scenes in each video (

Feedback Analytics - Measuring the impact of video feedback on student learning

Background Watching videos has become an integral part of Higher Education, with students routinely interacting with YouTube, lecture recordings, and Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as part of their blended-learning experiences. Short videos that can be easily accessed and repeatedly viewed have also been crucial to the success of educational initiatives such as the Khan Academy, and this project adopted online videos as a key mechanism of feedback delivery. The use of instructor video feedback has the potential to provide multisensory information on student performance through a personalized communication channel that students readily engage with. Aims This project developed and deployed vMarks, a software application designed to facilitate the delivery of instructor feedback in the form of short personalized videos accessible online for students. We aimed to investigate the impact of video feedback on student learning, specifically by reviewing student interaction with the videos through learning analytics (feedback analytics), and their perceptions towards effective feedback practices in Higher Education. Design and methods Following the completion of a practical laboratory examination, students enrolled in the 2014 and 2015 offerings of MICR2000 (‘Microbiology and Immunology’) at The University of Queensland (UQ) were given video feedback for this assessment task. Instructors recorded a short 1-minute video highlighting each student’s experimental outcomes and laboratory performance, which was emailed to students directly through vMarks. Student interaction with vMarks was measured through feedback analytics (frequency of logins, video views, pausing and scrubbing patterns), and their perceptions towards feedback in higher education collated through surveys (n=60) and one-on-one interviews (n=16). Informed consent was obtained in all cases (Project #2012000755 approved by the UQ Behavioural Social Science Ethical Review Committee). Results Over 50% of the 2014 and 2015 MICR2000 students who logged into vMarks watched their feedback video once without pausing or scrubbing; the remainder of the students sat through multiple video viewings and paused/scrubbed at least once through the 1-minute video. Video timestamps with high pausing/scrubbing frequency correlated to specific experimental skills assessed in the practical examination. Pre and post survey analysis revealed an 17% increase in student responses reporting video feedback as the most helpful form of feedback, which was further supported by interviews where 27% of students found video feedback to be most useful for their learning. Conclusions Video analytics can be used to highlight common student misconceptions and facilitate the refinement of the feedback/feed-forward loop across multiple iterations of assessment. The accessibility of video feedback presents a powerful tool for instructors to expand their feedback practices

Blended delivery of laboratory experiences: Changing roles for education focussed academics

BACKGROUND Limited external funding and inconsistent promotion criteria can hamper education-focused academics in evidencing their impact (Hubbard, Gretto, Hones, & Tallents, 2015). The sector-wide demand for online program offerings presents an opportunity to align education-focused appointments with teaching initiatives that harness the transformative potential of blended learning experiences (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004). AIMS To investigate the impact of blended laboratory experiences through the lens of student learning and the professional development of academics. DESIGN AND METHODS Novel laboratory skills videos were produced by education-focused academics at The University of Queensland (UQ), and deployed in a second-year microbiology course (>300 students) in 2019. Student engagement was monitored using learning analytics, and academics (n=6) were interviewed throughout the semester. RESULTS Student engagement with the videos aligned with laboratory assessment tasks, and the videos were also used in the professional development of laboratory tutors. Academics consistently cited the time commitment for video production being a barrier to widespread implementation, but valued the transferrable nature of these skillsets for education-focused appointments. CONCLUSIONS The increasing digitization of Higher Education provides education-focused academics with the opportunity to drive the high-impact development of online and blended learning innovations within their discipline

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth? An inquiry-driven microbiology undergraduate research experience into the human oral microbiome

Clinical microbiology testing is a fundamental component of healthcare, which depends upon the problem solving skills of its employees. Graduates entering these positions must be able to select, conduct, and interpret a wide variety of diagnostic tests, and undergraduate curricula must be able to foster these transferrable research skills. To this end, an undergraduate research experience (URE) was implemented in MICR2000, an introductory microbiology and immunology course offered at The University of Queensland (UQ). The URE aimed to identify the bacterial composition within healthy human oral cavities (the human oral microbiome), an original research question that has the potential to establish oral risk factors for disease. Previous studies have been hindered by limited volunteer recruitment but by engaging MICR2000 students, 225 oral swab samples were collected for microbial identification via student-driven selection and interpretation of diagnostic tests. In addition to novel research data generated for the oral microbiome, pre and post surveys revealed higher learning gains in laboratory skills, and confidence in explaining, interpreting, and designing experiments (