Paper Pumpkin - Evaluating Students on Anatomy Models in Face to Face Environment Using Canvas Quizzes

[awilliams]

I can't take credit for coming up with this, but since the faculty member who did is not in the community as of yet, I will share their project here for them.

One of our Biology Instructors has students take a bare bones (no pun intended) model of the human body, and then use modeling clay to create muscle groups and attach them to the models. He then sets up each of these models into stages around the classroom and uses pins with labels to indicate a specific muscle groups on each model. The labels just have letters, not the names of the groups. In the past, he would create paper quizzes and hand them out at the beginning of class and have students split up into groups and then go to each stage and try to answer which muscle group was indicated by the pins at that model. As soon as a group completed all the stages they would turn in their quizzes to him, he would furiously grade them as fast as possible, return them, and let them go over what they got right and wrong.

He has now transitioned to using college provided tablets and Canvas Quizzes to replace the paper quizzes. Students get immediate feedback, all of the grading is automatic, and he can provide rich comments if the students missed any questions. This is saving tons of time and tons of paper and the students really enjoy the activity. They are up and out of their seats engaging with real physical objects while at the same time leveraging technology to create a wonderful learning experience.