Diversifying Course Lecture Content

Why Employ Diverse Lecture Content?

As explained in other parts of my portfolio, student engagement is key in online courses. As such, I encourage faculty to utilize best practices from relevant learning theories (e.g. Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and Cognitive Load Theory) when creating their course’s lecture components. Additionally, I help faculty to envision the best mode to utilize to convey their course content. To do this successfully, I provide faculty with my own thoughts informed by the scholarship of teaching and learning about how best to demonstrate course concepts. Additionally, I engage with our instructional design video coordinator and Mediaservices team to faithfully execute the production of new and engaging ODEE-produced lecture video types.

Collaborating as a Team

In the image above, you can see me working in concert with the faculty member and our instructional design video coordinator. Each member worked together bringing various levels of expertise to produce the final product: a light board lecture for the course PHARM 7588.

I often work with the faculty to identify topics that would best be displayed through the use of a light board lecture, guest interviews, guest lectures, and/or lab/site walkthrough videos. Upon determining topics suitable for different presentation means, I work closely with the instructional design video coordinator to discuss logistics for the filming of the lectures and help prepare the faculty for recording of new instructional videos.

LIGHTBOARD LECTURES

PHARM 7588

The course, PHARM 7588: Toxic Substances, focuses on the study of toxic substances and the clinical management of a poisoned patients. Jen Plahovinsak, the faculty instructor for the course, utilized the Mount Hall recording studio to create eleven lightboard lectures. In these lightboard lectures, Jen outlined the mechanisms of action for various groups of toxic substances. These videos will not only allow her students to have a more personalized experience with their instructor, but also to see information conveyed in a manner distinct from voiceover PowerPoint lectures that increases their overall engagement with the material.

PHR 7580

PHR 7580 serves as an introductory course to Safety Pharmacology in the Masters of Science in Pharmacology program. Dr. Brian Roche, the faculty instructor for the course, came to the Mount Hall studio to record several speciality lightboard lectures which we sprinkled throughout the course. By utilizing this lecture method, Brian was able to demonstrate his enthusiasm and excitement for the course material, to increase his presence in the course, and to serve as means to expand his case study lectures later in the course.

GUEST INTERVIEWS

BMI 7810

The course, BMI 7810: Design and Methodological Approaches in Biomedical Informatics, sought to help students understand the collaborative nature of science with a focus on grant writing. I worked with the faculty instructors to determine expertise within their own unit, The Department of Biomedical Informatics, that could speak to the importance of collaboration in science–specifically with respect to statistics. This resulted in a guest interview below with biostatistician Amy Lehman. This interview again demonstrates the high value of instructor presence in the course and allows the students to experience why scientists should collaborate with statisticians firsthand as Kim Powell is a research scientist and Amy is a statistician.

PHARM 8170

The course, PHARM 8170: Leading, Planning, and Managing the Pharmacy Enterprise, serves as a capstone course for the Master of Science in Health System Pharmacy Administration. Because the program is preparing pharmacists to become the next generation of pharmacy directors, the course instructor, Dr. Robert J. Weber, worked with me to identify opportunities for students to hear from experts in field of Pharmacy Enterprise. In the example interview below with Dr. Susan Moffatt-Bruce, the Executive Director of University Hospital, students can hear about working with C-suite executives to develop innovative pharmacy operational implementations.

 

GUEST LECTURES

PHARM 7583

The course, PHARM 7583: Advanced Organ Systems Toxicology and Risk Assessment, begins with a robust introduction to hazards versus risk and risk assessment. Leveraging my content area expertise in Biology, I connected Jen Plahovinsak, the faculty instructor, with my former advisor, Dr. Roman Lanno, Associate Professor in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology. Through conversations among us we were able to identify some content from one of his Environmental Toxicology courses that could be adapted for Jen’s course. In this video, you can see that Roman has some slides to guide the conversation, but the focus is on the conversation that he and Jen are having. This video adds tremendous value to the course by promoting student engagement with the material through a conversational tone and access to real-world scenarios that demonstrate application of course content.

PHARM 7588

PHARM 7588 covers the mechanisms toxic substances as a follow-up to the Toxicology courses (PHARM 7582 and 7583) in the MSP Program. One module focuses on the differences between Pharmacology versus Ecotoxicology. Leveraging my content area expertise in Biology, I connected Jen Plahovinsak, the faculty instructor, with a former lab-mate of mine, Dr. Katie Albanese, who now works at Batelle to discuss the differences between the Pharmacology studies and Ecotoxicology studies. Again, in this video, Jen and Katie use the slides as a guide for their discussion of the material, thus, bringing the content more into the lens of real-world applications.

BMI 5760

In BMI 5760, one of the primary goals of the course is to reveal how the field of Public Health and Informatics intersect. Through discussions with the faculty instructors, Dr. Tasneem Motiwala and Dr. Megan Gregory, we located relevant experts in the field to help make the connections between Public Health and Informatics more clear to the students. As a result, Dr. Motiwala invited Brian Fowler, from the Ohio Department of Public Health, to provide real-world connections to the content of the course.

LAB WALKTHROUGHS & SITE VISITS

PHR 7584

In PHR 7584, students explore pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic (PD) concepts and processes that contribute to the development of pharmaceutical drugs. In the course the students learn about specific PK and PD assays that researchers conduct. This video allows the students to not only see the assays which they’ve been studying in action in a real lab settings, but also provide them with another glimpse of their course instructors and their respective areas of expertise in action. In the video below, Dr. Mitch Phelps introduces the lab walkthrough video series to the students of PHR 7584.

PHARM 8170

PHARM 8170 contains various vignette videos filmed around the The Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. These videos allow students to a gain insight into the inner workings of the Pharmacy Enterprise–something essential for students to see since this capstone course prepares them for life as a pharmacy director.  Both of the following videos showcase the innovative robotic technology in The James Cancer Hospital’s inpatient pharmacy:

Contemporary technology of the pharmacy enterprise

Robotic technology in pharmacy compounding