Using Visible Body’s Courseware with Sports Medicine Students

Last week the VB Team received a trial request from Jared Bradley, who teaches sports medicine to 35 students at Pajaro Valley High School. The course is part of the school’s CTE program, and Jared was interested in trying a Visible Body product that could help with the big goals he has for his students:  “I want my students to have access to high-quality resources—the kind that promote big thinking and motivate dreams for their future.”

I reached out to Jared and we talked for about 30 minutes. Over the course of our initial phone call:

• I heard about his course needs: replace some printed materials (like anatomy coloring books) and PowerPoint lectures with technology that engages students
• We discussed the computers his students use: ChromeBooks and mobile phones. “Although on any given day, I’ll have 2-4 students with no computer or broken computers.”
• He reviewed the course's learning objectives and topics presented

We decided that Courseware was the Visible Body product that would best fit his teaching goals and I gave Jared a free instructor trial. He agreed to try it out and share his first thoughts on using the platform. Here are some observations after a week of using his free instructor trial. We are sharing his experience because we get so many instructors who ask, “How do I start using this?” We thought a good way to answer that was to share one instructor’s experience in doing just that!

What was your first experience with logging into the Courseware Instructor trial?

When I logged in the first time, there were a few pre-created courses to browse through. That was great because I could see what some other instructors created, and it gave me lesson content I could use and ideas for lesson content I could create. It was pretty easy for me to figure out the platform.

What are your first impressions of how Courseware could change how you get students engaged with learning the content in the course?

When I saw the content, the immediate reaction was how cool to click on ANY bone, see its name, definition, and hear a pronunciation. I like that there are lessons in [the] A&P app that I can pick up and use, like the one on the axial skeleton…all those bones highlight as you move through the lesson. Students can click around and learn.

Lesson 10.1 from Anatomy & Physiology is on the axial skeleton. The 3D model in the lesson can be used for a lecture presentation or for a dissection activity completed by students.

Next week students will have a trial and can use the platform. I am going to try the quizzing. The quiz maker is cool. It was easy for me to figure out how to use it. I do have some questions about making my own quizzes. I’d like to give a quiz on the muscles of the rotator cuff and have students label them.

The instructor login to Visible Body's Courseware includes access to over 3,500 test items in the quiz bank and pre-made quizzes. If you can't find just what you need, you can customize what's already there or create your own.

Is there anything you wish the platform had?

Right now I’ll have to sign up my students by emailing them the course link. They’ll click on that link on their ChromeBooks and be added to the course I’ve started creating. I wish that course link wasn't so long! If it was short I could just put it up on screen.

What are you going to try next?

I looked at the lesson plans I had for this week, they are on muscle tissue and function. I used the trial to find that content in Courseware and assigned those lessons.

Courseware has the major important topics, the big ideas because it lets you access content from Visible Body products. So far I've used content from Atlas and from the A&P. I've picked lessons on types of muscles, skeletal muscle structure, skeletal muscle function, action potential, and cross-bridge formation. 

This video previews skeletal muscle lessons created in Visible Body's Courseware for students in a sports medicine course. The content previewed includes part of an animation on muscle function and a 3D model students can investigate.

Before I got this trial I  would have used the textbook we give students, a lengthy PowerPoint, and used assignments I created in Google Classroom, plus some Kahoot! quizzes. Now I am going to try using the lessons I selected out of Courseware. They include 3D models, animations, and visuals. First I'll lecture with them. Then I'll open the assignments to students. I might still use the textbook for some of the details that are in charts. I’ll still do some of the Kahoots.

Using Courseware to change the content was a big time saver!

A big thank to Jeff Bradley for sharing his thoughts on his first week using an instructor Courseware trial! We’ll check in next week to see how the students liked the trial, and what’s next for his course.

If you are an instructor interested in a Visible Body Courseware trial, use the form on this page to make a request!