Lessons Learned From an Online Human Physiology Course

With the explosion of user-friendly computer technology and availability of digital media, which are widely available the world over, the time is right for the development and delivery of online courses. Our new online Basic Human Physiology course (online PSL course) was created to give students more flexibility in terms of time and location, to allow self-directed learning within a semi-structured frame-work, and to give opportunity to many non-University of Toronto students to complete the course. Students in this course come from diverse background. Some need this course to fulfil a physiology prerequisite for one of the various health care professionals programs, while others just want to understand how the body works and be better educated about their own physical health. The online course consists of 51 online didactic lectures and corresponding topic-related "virtual labs" that involve computer simulations. The support for the online PSL course consists of a faculty monitored discussion board, direct email access to the lecturers, virtual TA hours and opportunity to post and answer questions on the course discussion board 24/7. Through comparative data analysis of the in-class courses and the online course, and through student evaluations, online surveys and analysis of web activity, we found that the online course appears to be as effective in terms of student grades, lecturer evaluation and open-ended questions. Moreover, we found that simple strategies like incorporating frequent online quizzes (something that is difficult to do in in-class courses) proved effective in enhancing the learning experience. We also found that taking full advantage of the frequent but voluntary discussion board and virtual TA session participation was crucial to the students' success. Overall, our results suggest that the online course was as effective as the in-class course. Moreover, we found that the online course fostered the students' ability for critical thinking and promoted problem solving skills. Results from analysis of data, student surveys and course evaluations in the online course will be discussed and compared with traditional in class course delivery.