What Comes in a Premade Course in Visible Body Courseware?

Visible Body wants to make it easy for instructors to teach and for students to learn—that’s why we created Courseware, our teaching and learning platform that’s loaded with 3D visual science content. Thanks to premade courses, developed by both instructors and the Visible Body Education Team, instructors can save time and effort!

Visible Body provides a whole library of free, premade courses ready for classroom use—you’ll notice that many of these courses are textbook correlations. Correlated courses are built to complement popular A&P and biology textbooks. 

In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the OpenStax Anatomy & Physiology Correlation premade course, which is designed as a companion to the OpenStax textbook of the same name. We’ll walk you through the awesome 3D content that complements and enhances the textbook experience.

Anatomy of a premade course

The OpenStax Anatomy & Physiology textbook is broken down into 28 chapters, and the premade course contains a corresponding folder for each chapter. Everything a student needs is already built in and ready to go—instructors just need to add due dates.

Every folder is different, but for this blog post, we’re going to take a deep dive into the “Anatomy of the Nervous System” folder. 

The first thing you’ll see is the relevant textbook chapter. Since OpenStax Anatomy & Physiology is an online textbook, students can click on the included link to access the chapter content. After students read the chapter, their knowledge will be reinforced, augmented, and tested through 3D models, virtual labs, and quizzes!

After your students have read the textbook chapter, they will explore anatomy and physiology using interactive 3D assignments. 

Assignment in Courseware.

Courseware assignments create an “on the rails,” distraction-free online environment where students can move through activities in a single browser window. The 3D models allow students to follow their curiosity and explore anatomy, physiology, and biology, while the instructions and sequence of activities make sure each student stays on task to achieve learning objectives.

Students can work at their own pace, and their quiz grades and time-on-task are automatically logged in the Gradebook. Courseware connects with many LMS platforms to make course integration seamless.

Let’s take a closer look at the Spinal Cord and Spinal Nerves assignment. Students explore anatomy with a series of guided tours of the spinal cord. Using 3D models, histology slides, and other 2D content, each activity walks students through concepts like: 

• The anatomy and spatial relationships of the meninges, vertebral column, and spinal nerves.
• How the spinal nerves connect to the spinal cord.
• How sensory signals pass into the spinal cord.
• How motor commands pass from the spinal cord.
• Spinal nerve regions.
• Cervical, brachial, and lumbosacral innervation.
• Reflexes.

Students will manipulate 3D models of structures like the spinal cord and spinal nerves, exercising their factual and spatial knowledge as they reinforce what they’ve learned in the OpenStax chapter. Then, they will take two short quizzes to check their understanding of those concepts. 

After that, your students will work through similar assignments on the brain and the cranial nerves. 

Image from Courseware.

With a solid foundation, students can then explore several nervous system pathologies in VB Suite. Exploring pathologies is an effective way to keep students’ attention—by making connections to “real life” problems and clinical applications, students engage more fully in A&P content. 

Students are then asked to explore a model of the nervous system, finding and identifying a list of structures. 

Next, they will work through virtual Flashcard Decks to prepare for assessments on these topics. Students can save these Decks to their VB Suite accounts and access them on their mobile devices for easy studying on the go.

Flashcards in the VB Suite mobile app. 

Now, students are ready to complete a series of quizzes that test their knowledge of cranial nerve, brain, and spinal cord anatomy. The quizzes include dissection and traditional multiple choice quizzes. In a dissection quiz, students navigate a 3D model to select the correct answer. 

Last, but not least, students can complete labs! The nervous system folder in this course features five lab activities that allow students to get virtually “hands-on” with anatomy. These lab activities—including an augmented reality activity—go beyond flat illustrations and blocks of text to get students fully engaged in the content. 

All the content we’ve discussed so far is included in one folder—and there are 28 folders in the course! In this one premade course, Visible Body supplies a whole semester’s worth of 3D learning.

Customizing Premade Content

You may find that you want to tweak a premade course, choose different assignments to include, or even create your own content—in Courseware, you can edit or create your own assignments and folders! Using Visible Body’s robust libraries of premade courses, Flashcards, Tours, and labs, you can design your own assignments through an intuitive, drag-and-drop assignment builder.

Building an assignment in Courseware. 

Need some extra help? Visible Body’s Customer Engagement Team helps instructors build their courses and get the most out of Courseware. If you already use Courseware but you want a deeper understanding, you can schedule a one-on-one training session with the Customer Engagement Team.

Instructors Love Premade Content

Instructors who use Courseware don’t need to spend hours developing their own courses online—premade courses save time and effort that can be better spent teaching. 

If you are interested in exploring Courseware for the first time, you can request a free instructor trial below.

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Are you an instructor? We have award-winning 3D products and resources for your anatomy and physiology course! Learn more here.