How to Teach the Digestive System with Visible Body Courseware
Do you want your A&P students to be more engaged as they learn about the digestive system? Sick to your stomach—pun intended—of seeing those glazed-over eyes staring blankly back at you?
Visible Body Courseware has the 3D models and animations that will engage your students, and it’s got the premade content you need to save time and effort during course prep.
Let’s walk through how you can use Courseware to teach the digestive system!
An activity in Courseware.
Courseware in the Classroom
Courseware is Visible Body’s teaching and learning platform that’s loaded with 3D visual science content.
Courseware is designed to help instructors leverage Visible Body’s vast library of 3D assets in the classroom through courses and assignments. Courseware can be used on its own or integrated with your LMS, and Courseware’s Gradebook makes it easy to export grades.
Here are just a few of the ways instructors use Courseware:
Using Assignments in Courseware
Let’s start with assignments! Assignments in Courseware keep students focused while giving them the opportunity to learn through exploration.
Our team has created ready-to-use courses full of immersive assignments that are available for instructors to use.
A Courseware assignment is a sequence of activities and quizzes that create an “on the rails” experience. In each activity, instructions guide the student through a 3D model—you can also assign animation, illustration, or histology slide content.
For example, the “Introduction: Digestive System" assignment from the Anatomy and Physiology: Essential Concepts course kicks off with a short-and-sweet animation that provides an overview of the digestive system. This sets the stage and prepares students for what they’re about to learn.
However, in a Courseware assignment, students do more than just flip through pages and watch videos. After the animation on food’s journey through the body, students tackle a series of 3D models.
An activity in Courseware.
The instructions on the left side of the assignment keep students focused on the objectives at hand as they manipulate the model.
Students can click on a structure to select it. When a structure is selected, the info box pops up. By clicking on the different icons in the info box, students can...
- Add a tag to the structure
- Fade or hide the structure
- Read a definition (or have it read aloud through the Listen button)
- Read about pathologies related to the structure
- Hear a pronunciation of the structure's name
- View attachments and insertions, blood supply, innervation, and other details (if the selected structure is a muscle)
After exploring the sequence of learning materials, it’s time for assessment. Students’ knowledge is tested through multiple choice and dissection quizzes—in a dissection quiz, students must manipulate a 3D model to select the correct structure.
For example, here's a peek at a quiz in the "Esophagus and Stomach" assignment.
GIF from Courseware.
Flashcard Decks and Tours
In Courseware, you can assign Flashcard Decks and Tours in addition to assignments.
Flashcards in VB Suite are assignable in Courseware.
Flashcards are one of Visible Body’s most popular features, and with the VB Suite mobile app, students can use Flashcard Decks on the go!
There are several premade Decks available that cover the digestive system:
- Hepatic lobule
- Accessory organs
- Small and large intestines
- Esophagus and stomach
- Oral cavity
Tours are another fantastic VB tool used in classrooms around the world. A Tour is a connected series of saved Views—think of it as a custom, interactive 3D presentation. You can find premade Tours for the digestive system and the hepatic lobule in this library.
Create and Customize
Want to create your own assignments, Flashcard Decks, and Tours? Want to tweak premade content? Visible Body’s got you covered!
Through an intuitive, drag-and-drop interface, you can edit and create assignments.
Creating an assignment in Courseware.
It’s simple to create Tours and Flashcards in VB Suite—just adjust and annotate the models you want, and in a couple clicks, you’ve got your own custom Flashcard or Tour.
Your students can create their own Tours and Flashcards, too! Check out these blog posts for ideas:
- Bony Landmarks Flashcards
- 5 Ways to Teach Trauma Assessment with Visible Body
- A&P for Phlebotomy: A Visible Body Lesson Plan
Try Courseware for Yourself!
If you are interested in exploring Courseware for the first time, you can request a free instructor trial here.
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