Flexible physiology labs: How Professor Wendy Riggs uses Lt Sensors to teach human physiology remotely

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“The fact that I have a full set of videos for general biology, anatomy, and physiology meant I was in a good position to provide assistance to others making that transition. They would all watch the screen and see the data, and then they would talk to each other and try to figure out what was happening.” As Wendy thought about how the physiology course could be taught remotely, the idea of group work at a distance was front of mind: “Why couldn’t we do this at a distance, why couldn’t we facilitate really robust lab experiences when they aren’t sharing space?” In a hands-on discipline like human physiology, it’s important for students to be able to perform experiments and collect authentic data. One of the things Wendy finds most engaging about the labs in her course is that “it’s really fun to actually collect data on your classmates, and then try to figure out what it means, and ask questions.” During the transition year of 2020, it felt like there was something missing. Enable peer connections - It’s not only important to foster your relationship with your students, but also student-student interactions: “We really try to facilitate their connections with each other, so we encourage study groups, and in all our discussion forums, it isn’t “Respond to three classmates”, it’s “What can you do to help someone out?”, and it creates a cosier community.” Creating this strong sense of cooperation has also meant that students are more open to new teaching approaches: “When we come out and we say “By the way, now we’re gonna do these sensor labs”, they say “Okay!”. Wendy and her team have been discussing the idea of HyFlex teaching: "That kind of model allows total flexibility for the student, depending on what happens in their lives: if they can show up to a face-to-face class, they might do that, but if they can’t for whatever reason, then they have this way of continuing in the class and staying engaged that’s legit - not “I’m filling out worksheets and doing this busy work because I can’t be in class”, but actually still participating in the face-to-face experience.” Bringing a new approach into the future In the post-COVID age of digital teaching, Wendy reflects a common attitude amongst educators when she says that “I feel like my brain is living in this world of constantly needing to flex to adjust to whatever comes up and whatever people need.” In the future, the course might shift to be more hybrid, with a face-to-face lab component.

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