The Labster Podcast

April and SJ
  • 5.0 (3)
  • EDUCATION

The Labster Podcast gives science educators like you a chance to hear from peers who teach with Labster’s virtual labs and other educational technologies. We’ll reflect on learning and curriculum design, and leave you feeling inspired and energized about reaching and teaching your students.

Episodes

  1. 02/25/2021

    "Ideas for Teaching with Labster (Part 1) "

    Memorable moments: [00:09:34] Caitlin: Speaking specifically to virtual lab simulations, we have two main ways that we integrate them into our curriculum. So one is exactly as you said, we do it for marks and the other is really more for play.  [00:11:34] Felicia: They have, I think it's worth very little like five percent of their mark, and they get multiple attempts and they have the highest one. But what I really wanted to do is I wanted it to be more like a gamified intervention type idea. [00:14:14] Felicia: I want them to have enjoyment out of university and out of their courses so that they get interested in the content, but also help them discover themselves, because that's the purpose of university. It's not just coursework. It's also discovering who you are.  [00:18:39] Felicia: But what we really wanted to do was to teach them a specific fundamental biochemistry concept, whether it be DNA, proteins or metabolism, and then show them how it applies to a biomedical context. So that's what I really loved about Labster, is that it doesn't just show you the, you know, the protocol or the lab or whatever, it wraps it up in a really awesome and relevant biomedical problem.  [00:21:16] Caitlin: Next Generation Sequencing is a pretty high-level technique, but in the Next Generation simulations in Labster, it builds into that technique in a very approachable way, talking about ancient DNA. And I think it really makes some of these, again, abstract and rather complex topics, approachable for students. Episode 3 Transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13LxxFNb7IL4Ui0etz3g6rwkVjVp3SLJU/view?usp=sharing Teaching tools mentioned in this episode: Mentimeter: https://www.mentimeter.com/ Microsoft Teams: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/free  Try Labster now: https://www.labster.com/try/ Subscribe to our monthly newsletter: https://www.labster.com/newsletter Find Labster on Social:  https://twitter.com/labster  https://www.facebook.com/teamlabster https://www.linkedin.com/company/labster/

    23 min

  2. 02/25/2021

    Gamified Learning and Engagement

    Memorable Moments: [00:03:01] SJ: If a student is just looking to kind of win the session or to get to the end and get the grade by sticking to the rules, learning what they are, and really doing whatever they need to do to satisfy those criteria, then all we're doing is teaching a student to get that badge and to learn the rules. [00:08:42] SJ: Lots of gamified learning ignores that process of starting easy and getting harder with little checkpoints along the way, and instead tries to just put something fun together and have a one-shot assessment at the end that checks the full learning. And those summative assessments aren't necessarily helpful for the student in recognizing whether they're learning or not.  [00:20:13] SJ: I think we've kind of touched on something that really helps me answer this question of “is Labster a game or is Labster a serious learning tool?”  [00:23:11] SJ: Labster is something that can be implemented consistently throughout the course and really embedded as part of the curriculum of that course, not just the syllabus of teaching topics that are difficult to teach at the minute because students can't go in the labs, but a true technique for learning, a virtual technique for learning that can add value and have other content, other activities built around it. Try Labster now: https://www.labster.com/try/  Subscribe to our monthly newsletter: https://www.labster.com/newsletter  Find Labster on Social:  https://twitter.com/labster  https://www.facebook.com/teamlabster  https://www.linkedin.com/company/labster/

    26 min

  3. 02/25/2021

    Inclusion in the Virtual Lab

    Memorable moments: [00:03:27] SJ: What we aim to do is break down the barriers that stop the user from, stop a student or an educator from really engaging with the learning opportunities that are contained within.  [00:05:38] SJ: What you might not know is that everything that they pick up on in terms of issues for access or cultural bias or suggestions for how we might improve the diversity of representation within our simulations comes to the content team. And we listen and we try and formulate responses that are useful that we can actually implement within our current platform.  [00:08:00] SJ: We have a feature now where the skin tone of the avatar representing the user is randomly generated and there are five different skin tones to represent the different users of the simulations that can randomly be generated in the simulation.  [00:15:47] SJ: We've got our simple activities, our simple pre-lab activities, if you want, and fact-finding, reading perhaps in a blog or finding information online, then we have a virtual lab experience and then maybe we have a more constructive activity, something that's more consolidated after the lab or something like that might be designed in a protocol based on a technique that's taught in the lab.  [00:20:18] SJ: If you want to use the virtual labs to really deliver a portion of your syllabus or to really highlight a particular topic or technique within your syllabus for a course, then it would be better to either dedicate a time slot in the timetable for completion of the virtual lab or giving a very clear deadline of when the lab needs to be done.  Episode 1 Transcript: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1T9ROE8hEcm5zN-GtplF1oSKCO2zbU7ds?usp=sharing    Try Labster now: https://www.labster.com/try/ Subscribe to our monthly newsletter: https://www.labster.com/newsletter Find Labster on Social:  https://twitter.com/labster  https://www.facebook.com/teamlabster https://www.linkedin.com/company/labster/

    22 min
  • 3 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

The Labster Podcast gives science educators like you a chance to hear from peers who teach with Labster’s virtual labs and other educational technologies. We’ll reflect on learning and curriculum design, and leave you feeling inspired and energized about reaching and teaching your students.

Information

  • Creator
    April and SJ
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2020 - 2021. Labster.
  • Show Website
    The Labster Podcast