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  • Andrew Lokuta, PhD, Anatomy & Physiology program director at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

    Flexible, Engaging, and Realistic: How Pearson Interactive Labs for A&P Meet Rising Educational Expectations

    By Andrew Lokuta

    In today’s educational landscape, technology isn’t just a tool—it’s a necessity. As an instructor of Anatomy & Physiology (A&P), I have quickly learned that virtual wet lab simulations must meet the unique needs of instructors and students while providing a solution to support the challenges of learning when lab resources and time are often limited.

    In an era where more is expected from both technology and education, Pearson Interactive Labs for A&P rise to the challenge, delivering an impactful and accessible learning solution for all.

    Pearson Interactive Labs for A&P Delivers More

    Pearson Interactive Labs for A&P are designed to enhance critical thinking, comprehension, and build confidence. The modular design of these virtual lab simulations allows them to be integrated seamlessly into any A&P 1 and 2 lecture or lab course.

    • Sparking Student Interest from the Start: Each lab begins with a pithy “Spark” that piques student interest and connects each lab to the real-world. Learners are then provided with essential background information to ensure they feel prepared for the experiment to come. For example, the “Spark” for the Blood Typing Lab ignites student curiosity by sharing that a person in the USA needs donated blood every 2 seconds.
    • Real Wet Lab Experience Encouraging Critical Reflection: Each Experiment provides students with a realistic A&P lab experience that mirrors the tasks they would perform in a real wet lab. Using a prepared workbench, students collect and analyze data while being prompted with "Stop & Think" questions. These reflection points help them pause, integrate a “lab partner’s” feedback, and connect the data to key concepts.
    • Applying Knowledge to Clinical Scenarios: Each lab concludes with an “Application” module where students are challenged to apply their newly acquired A&P knowledge to real-world scenarios. The Compound Microscope Interactive Lab includes a case study examining the margins of excised tissue of breast cancer patient to understand if the removal was successful. This final step solidifies the learning experience by making it both practical and relevant to students’ future careers.

    Pearson Interactive Labs for A&P offer flexibility for both students and instructors:

    One of the most valuable aspects of Pearson Interactive Labs for A&P is its flexibility, offering multiple ways for instructors to integrate them into their curriculum to engage students. These labs can be used as:

    • A Complete Wet Lab Replacement: There are many reasons that virtual labs are beneficial, including limitations with physical lab space, resources, and time. Additionally, instructors may teach online lab courses, need to offer a way for students to make-up labs, or there may be safety concerns to ensure that students and animals are protected from harm. Pearson Interactive Labs serve as a fully immersive alternative. Students conduct these virtual experiments that simulate a real wet lab experience without compromising the depth of learning.
    • A Complement to In-Person Labs: Instructors can assign the labs as supplementary exercises before or after in-person labs to reinforce key concepts covered in a traditional lab setting. By offering students additional practice and reinforcement outside the classroom either as pre-lab exposure or as post-lab review, instructors can create more efficient and effective in-person lab experiences.
    • Pick and Choose Lab Components: Instructors have the flexibility to select specific modules of the lab simulations that best align with their course objectives. They can even edit or add their own questions or content. This a-la-carte approach allows students to focus on the most relevant sections, ensuring that the labs meet the specific needs of the curriculum.

    Pearson Interactive Labs for A&P not only foster deeper student engagement and learning but also offer instructors the convenience of integrating interactive, customizable lab activities into their curriculum. Incorporating these labs will empower your students with the critical thinking and hands-on skills they need to excel in A&P and beyond.

  • Illustration of human torso showing musculature and internal organs with a focus on the heart, lungs, and major vessels.

    PAL 4.0: Your virtual accomplice in enhanced A&P learning

    By Ruth Heisler

    Practice Anatomy Lab, or PAL 4.0, is a virtual anatomy lab study and practice tool created by faculty (like me) who teach Anatomy and A&P courses to undergraduates at 2-year & 4-year institutions. It is included within Mastering A&P at no extra cost. Conveniently located in the Study Area, it provides students with 24/7 lab access to the most widely used lab specimens and is inclusive of the most common materials used to teach gross anatomy: human cadavers, anatomical models, histology, cat, and fetal pig. What makes PAL 4.0 a secret weapon in your students’ learning journey is the intentional and helpful extras that promote active learning and encourage students to practice using tools such as:

    • Built-in audio pronunciations. For students and faculty alike! Latin and Greek-based anatomical terms aren’t easy. Make sure you are saying them correctly.
    • Muscle Origin, Insertion, Action animations. These focused animations make it easier to visualize where muscles are attached to the bone, and what the action looks like.
    • Flashcards. Customizable and a student favorite!
    • Practice quizzes. Multiple-choice format. The instructor bank has hundreds of different questions if you want to create a practice or for-credit quiz.
    • Practice lab practicals. Fill-in-the-blank format. The instructor bank has hundreds of different questions if you want to create a practice or for-credit practical.
    • 3D Interactive Models. Students can rotate 360°, remove structures, select to see names, and view side-by-side model/cadaver images for comparison. Each of the 30 models is a tour through a system (or part of a system) and allows students to explore and manipulate.
    • Instructor resources. Looking for an image from PAL that is fully labeled? Want to be able to edit those labels and move the leader lines? Show one of the animations in your lecture? Or maybe you just want an image of a single structure highlighted? Downloadable instructor resource files have all of this and more in editable PowerPoints, making it easy to incorporate into a lecture presentation, create a worksheet, or add to one of your LMS assignments.

    PAL 4.0 nudges students to take control of their own learning by implementing more effective learning strategies that activate different areas of the brain. And we know that utilizing different parts of the brain is an important part of the learning process.
    Intrigued by what it has to offer but overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to incorporate it into your course? Here are some suggestions. (Pro tip: pick just one to start with to see how it works for your class and your style of teaching.)

    Integrate images into your lectures and assignments. Screen shots and editable labeled images are available for every image and highlighted structure by downloading the PAL 4.0 instructor resource files. You can use these images in a multitude of ways: add to your lecture presentation, create a worksheet, or include as part of a quiz or assignment in your course LMS.

    Create and assign pre- or post-lab quizzes in Mastering A&P. Mastering A&P has an extensive test bank that includes hundreds of multiple-choice quiz questions, all of which feature an image from PAL. These questions can easily be selected to create a quiz within Mastering A&P. Assigning the quiz and syncing the grade is easy to do through your LMS.

    Create and assign lab practicals in Mastering A&P, for practice or credit. Students love the opportunity to practice. Mastering A&P has an extensive test bank that includes hundreds of fill-in-the-blank questions, all of which feature an image from PAL. These questions can easily be selected to create a practical within Mastering A&P. This can be created as a practice assignment or assigned for a grade. Syncing graded assignments with your LMS gradebook is easy to do!

    The jigsaw method: encourage students to teach each other. This is a favorite of mine. Students are broken into two or three groups, and each group is assigned a portion of the structures from the weekly lesson to learn before they come to lab. They do this using PAL 4.0. Using the test bank that already exists in Mastering, a short pre-lab quiz can be created to hold them accountable. Once they are in lab, they are paired with someone from the other group and must teach each other the material. As we all know, having to teach someone else is a powerful way to learn!

    Use the interactive 3D models in class. Why show static, 2D images in lecture when you can use a 3D model? I love the way these models can be easily rotated, structures can be removed, and relationships of structures can be better demonstrated. Students can access these 3D models in PAL to review and study. Each model is a series of 3D images that can be manipulated and take you on a tour through a body system or portion of a body system. You really should check these out.

    Use Muscle Origin, Insertion, and Action animations in your lecture or recitation. I will confess to occasionally accessing these animations when I have a hard time explaining an action to a student. Whether you use plastic models, human cadavers, or cats in your lab, it can be extremely hard to see where exactly the muscle originates from and/or where it inserts. These animations isolate a single muscle so all of this is easy to visualize, and then shows and narrates the movement. There are also a series of videos specific to the major synovial joints that demonstrate the muscles involved in movement at that specific joint.

    Impromptu “how to pronounce” breaks during lecture or lab. I frequently use this feature to settle arguments as to the “right way” to pronounce a specific structure. Whether it is a colleague or a student that isn’t quite sure, it is easy to click on the name of a structure in PAL and hear the pronunciation. These pronunciations were all carefully vetted by my eloquent co-author Dr. Nora Hebert.

    Make up assignments or provide extra credit. The last few years have taught us to expect the unexpected. PAL 4.0 can help. If a student has an excused absence or if a weather closure (or pandemic) cancels lab, assigning students to review structures in PAL combined with a quiz or lab practical created in Mastering A&P can replace the missed work.

    Beef up your online course. Prior to COVID, I would have told you it wasn’t possible to successfully teach an anatomy course in an online format. Well, I proved myself wrong. We are fortunate to have resources that make it possible for students to have virtual access to resources that support their learning in an online environment. PAL 4.0 is a perfect tool for helping students learn anatomy and, paired with the assessment tools available in Mastering A&P, provides the perfect partner to your online course.

    Independent & supplemental learning. A favorite feature of students is the ability to create their own flashcards. Additionally, faculty can create a customized list of structures for students to review in PAL 4.0, and then create questions in Mastering around this list.

    There are so many ways PAL 4.0 can be incorporated into your course to better support students’ learning. Have you thought of other ways to use PAL 4.0? We would love to hear about it!

  • Student waving at a laptop while wearing headphones.

    Support every learner, with Pearson’s accessible learning solutions

    By Pearson

    Our mission is simple: to help people make progress in their lives through learning. Because wherever learning flourishes, so do people. We'll only be successful when our educational materials are accessible to all users, and we’ve long been committed to providing access to learners with disabilities. That commitment is woven into the fabric of our learning materials, development processes, innovation efforts, employee culture, and partnerships.

    We’re proud to have been recognized as a Benetech Global Certified Accessible™ (GCA) publisher. The first third-party EPUB certification program to verify eBook accessibility. (Learn more about this achievement, and our new partnership with Benetech.)

    Accessibility in MyLab and Mastering  

    Pearson’s Faculty Advisors recently led best practice webinars for our two leading learning platforms, exploring accessibility features designed to help more learners succeed. (We invite you to watch the recorded webinars: MyLab or Mastering.)  

  • Man with dark hair and glasses using a laptop while sitting on a couch

    The top 7 Mastering features you should be using

    By Pearson

    Upon mastering a course, it’s etched in our minds along with much satisfaction and pride. That’s what happens for faculty and students alike using Pearson’s Mastering® platform. It supports active, engaging, and immersive experiences while lightening the teacher’s workload.

    You will see its interactive tutorials, real-time analytics, and tailored feedback become indispensable tools as you help prepare students for their academic journeys.

    We’ve rounded up seven of Mastering’s best features that are sure to help the way you teach, engage, and ensure your students success.

    7 Mastering features you can start leveraging today —

    Dynamic Study Modules pose a series of question sets about a course topic that adapt to each student’s performance and offer personalized, targeted feedback to help them master key concepts. They can use their computer or the MyLab and Mastering app to access Dynamic Study Modules. Available for select titles.

    Early Alerts help identify struggling students as early as possible — even if their assignment scores are not a cause for concern. With this insight, you can provide informed feedback and support at the very moment students need it, so they can stay — and succeed — in your course.

    Gradebook records all scores for automatically graded assignments. Struggling students and challenging assignments are highlighted in red, giving you an at-a-glance view of potential hurdles students may face throughout your course.

    Performance Analytics track student performance against specified learning outcomes at both the individual student and class level. Mastering problems are tagged to publisher-provided learning outcomes or added to course-specific, department-wide, or institution-wide learning outcomes.

    Learning Catalytics allows you to pose a variety of questions to help students recall ideas, apply concepts, and develop critical-thinking skills. Students can respond using their smartphones, tablets, or laptops.

    Pearson+ powers your eTextbook, which can be accessed directly in your Mastering course. You and your students can dive right into the course eTextbook — take notes, make highlights, and review flashcards — and even listen to your book at home or on the go with the Pearson+ mobile app. Together, Mastering and Pearson+ give your students an all-in-one learning experience.

    Scheduled Reading assigns a chapter or specific section to hold students accountable for their reading and help them prep for lectures, homework, and quizzes. Scheduled Readings populate to each student’s assignment page, and you can now link readings directly to Mastering assignments.

    With real-time insights from Mastering’s analytics dashboard, you can personalize your lectures and labs, keeping pace with student life today while helping to boost student performance.

    By putting more Mastering tools to work, you can help develop more confident, competent learners eager to embrace complex scientific challenges through mindful, meaningful ways and help them improve results.

    See for yourself just how purpose-built Mastering truly is.