Newswise — "Can we take biology again?" is the unusual request being made by veteran science faculty members at New York City College of Technology/CUNY, when they look at the teaching materials developed for the hybrid courses being offered by two of their colleagues.
City Tech Biology Professors Isaac Barjis and Walied Samarrai are the creative wizards behind the College's first hybrid lab courses, General Biology I and II and Anatomy & Physiology I and II. Part animation, part video, part interactive software and part Wiki, their courses are generating a buzz with both their students and colleagues as they make the study of biology a fascinating, wondrous and, most of all, fun experience that encourages creative experimentation. For example, students have access to simulated life processes that may be impossible, too expensive, difficult or time-consuming to accomplish with actual laboratory experiences. "In simulation, a month can take a minute, so students can view embryonic development from a single cell to a whole organism in no time at all," Barjis explains.
"Also, there's no need to wait until medical school to dissect a cadaver," Samarrai adds. "We give them the opportunity to work with a virtual human body and they can even follow the path of cerebral spinal fluids. We're offering the YouTube generation an antidote to a 'dry' textbook and limited labs."
Not only is content presented in a more exciting way, the hybrid courses provide a uniquely personal and flexible learning experience. They are a lively mix of in-person lectures and labs and online simulations, tutorials, discussions and self-testing tools that enable learning at one's own pace and schedule, and at lower cost. They are proving to be a boon for busy City Tech students on tight budgets who often have jobs and/or parenting responsibilities in addition to a full course load.
Both professors have found that creating customized material -- including study skills, tutorials, vocabulary, animations, interactive simulations and games -- helps students succeed with less stress and better outcomes.
"With customized learning, students feel more connected to the material and appreciate that their professors specifically tailored it for them," says Barjis. "For each lecture and lab we prepared slides, flash cards, short movie clips, animated PowerPoint presentations, interactive lab simulations (to enhance or replace 'wet' labs), lecture notes, tutorials, multiple choice practice questions and a link to an e-book."
Maude Campbell, a human services major, welcomed the flexible schedule, as she has a family and a part-time job. "For me, the technology was a little daunting to begin with, but when I got into it, I found I liked it because I had more time to study on my own. I had a better understanding and was more prepared when I got to the class. I already knew what I didn't understand, so I could ask the professor."
Barjis and Samarrai find hybrid courses to be superior to traditional classroom and lab situations. Says Samarrai, who has taught such courses since 2002, "Only a minority of students learn best directly from a teacher in a classroom. Others need to have information repeated several times. This is a way to help students with different abilities and different ways of learning to comprehend better, compared to giving them new information for the first time all in one lecture."
Those of us who remember dissecting a fetal pig in our biology lab course might wonder about drawbacks to performing lab experiments online. Rest assured that students are still coming in to Barjis and Samarrai's class to do dissections and traditional experiments. However, the added lab simulations allow students to participate whenever and wherever they have computer access, eliminate what for some is the troubling issue of actual animal dissection, and provide creative opportunities for collaboration and learning.
For example, says Barjis, "Wiki technology allows students, in different locations, to participate in an online case study as a group and to edit a site as they would edit an MS Word document." Students can add or delete a picture or diagram, insert a link or correct one another. When they are finished working on the case study, group members can design a Web page containing charts, figures, tables and links.
Salman Hossain, a second-year student who took biology II with Barjis last spring, concurs. "I prefer to study that way. It was convenient. You could log on anytime you needed to. You don't have to be in class just to take notes and study from that. It's more effective than reading a book, and I have better comprehension." Hossain was so impressed by this approach that he took another hybrid science course this past fall.
Hybrid courses also create learning communities; a large class of 40 can be divided into groups, with a leader to moderate interactions. Samarrai notes that hybrid courses teach students to take responsibility for their success. "They can practice a lot, learn by trial and error, and interact with the material and one another. They keep dealing with the information in different ways, so it's more appealing and they don't fall asleep!"
Adds Barjis, "I noticed that my students become more analytical using the simulations, because they're not just following a fixed recipe. They can repeat the experiments on their own, and can explore changing pH, temperature, concentration and other variables in order to answer 'What if?' questions."
Another benefit of hybrid courses is the lower cost to students. A typical biology or anatomy and physiology textbook could cost $140"$200, in addition to fees for a lab coat, dissecting kit and lab manual. City Tech students, however, can buy the e-book for $40 and a lab manual and accompanying CD for $26.
Enthusiasm for their subject areas propelled both scientists to team up to create the hybrid courses, with Barjis contributing his technology expertise to Samarrai's knowledge of biology and pedagogy. "I heard about non-science Web-enhanced courses, and I knew these techniques could be applied to teaching biology," says Samarrai, a Bay Ridge resident with roots in Jordan. Barjis, who now lives in Jamaica Estates, Queens, is originally from Afghanistan.
The two customized the course material by using available software such as Camtasia, Macromedia (e.g. Dreamweaver, Flash), Front Page and drawing from numerous CDs and other sources as permitted by the publishers. Constructing the course was so time-consuming that Samarrai's wife suggested old-fashioned teaching might be easier. "But," offers Barjis, "once you build the foundation, have all the materials, and teach the courses for years, it becomes easier."
In fact, Barjis' hybrid course for Anatomy & Physiology was selected as a model course by the CUNY Online Distributed Learning Network project (CUNYOnline), in which a grant from the Sloan Foundation enabled faculty in various disciplines from every CUNY college to develop interactive, user-friendly online Blackboard courses.
"Now that City Tech's first hybrid lab courses have proved successful," says Samarrai, "the next step is to do this with every course in the biology department." He and Barjis are also teaming up with other faculty members to build a 3D model of a virtual biological cell that will be part of City Tech's island in the virtual world of Second Life (www.secondlife.com). When completed, the virtual cell will allow students, via their individual avatars, to fly into it to examine each component -- nucleus, ectoplasm, membrane and others -- and their inter-relationship to one another.
Samarrai and Barjis are committed to staying ahead of the curve on using instructional technology to enhance their students' learning experiences. It's no wonder their colleagues want to sign up for their courses -- the duo's enthusiasm is infectious!
New York City College of Technology (City Tech) of The City University of New York is the largest public college of technology in New York State. The College enrolls more than 13,500 students in 57 baccalaureate, associate and specialized certificate programs. Another 15,000 students enroll annually in adult education and workforce development programs, many of which lead to licensure and certification. Located at 300 Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn, City Tech is at the MetroTech Center academic and commercial complex, convenient to public transportation.
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