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“Laboratory classes are and have always been the primary experiences associated with engaged learning in the sciences. These “Biology Cabinet” video resources that we’ve created enable our students to prepare for such experiences by reviewing relevant concepts and by seeing demonstrations of precisely the equipment, procedures and techniques they’ll be using in their lab work here at Elon.” — Dr. Antonio Izzo
In support of the emphasis on “engaged learning” in Elon’s undergraduate curriculum, and particularly in the Biology Department, Dr. Antonio Izzo, Dr. Yuko Miyamoto, Dr. Herb House, and Dr. Robert Vick have created, and are continuing work on, video demonstration resources for a “Biology Lab Cabinet” website. The resources being developed are focused on 2 phenomena: 1) the laboratory experiments associated with specific courses, and 2) techniques and instruments that are common to a number of experiments across courses. The resources support student preparation for lab activities, participation in lab activities, and review of lab activities in these courses prior to exams and tests. Video clips demonstrate lab activities and procedures in precisely the way students will be expected to conduct them, in the precise environment where they will be conducting them, with the precise equipment and supplies which they will employ to conduct them. Future plans call for the design and production of the Biology Lab Cabinet website, additional video demonstrations, and the inclusion of print and photographic resources that support student learning.
The “Biology Lab Cabinet” is being developed to reduce student anxiety in the lab environment, to provide complementary and supplementary content support for lab classes, and to help reduce the errors that students commonly make while conducting experiments and using lab equipment. Research and data collection regarding resource effectiveness are on-going.
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EdTech, a magazine focused on technology applications in education, features Elon University in its September/October edition. The article, titled “Building the Smarter Classroom,” says that Elon is “taking instructional technology to the next level,” with “pioneering collaborative classrooms and teaching students real-world skills.”
