Like most educators, David Little had to tackle the challenges of teaching remotely during the pandemic, interacting with students he couldn’t see. Thankfully, the session and subject (year 3 radiology) lent themselves to online delivery. With some adjustment, David successfully delivered a highly visual, interactive session. He achieved engagement through pre-materials, a quiz-based discursive approach, and an x-ray of himself.
Tools: Blackboard Collaborate, Radiopedia, pen tool to draw and highlight on screen, a magnification tool
Full story
David has taught the session may times in a face-to-face context. The advantage of in-person teaching is the ability to scan the room to see if people are engaged and listening. Thankfully, the visual nature of the topic lends itself to an online format. Combining the visual elements with a quiz and discussion through the chat made for an interactive session.
Radiopedia is a core part of radiology practice and teaching. Radiopedia is a validated case archive allowing clinicians to upload cases. The tool also affords the collation of playlists of interesting cases to share with students. David’s session, both in-person and online, uses Radiopedia playlists. With the move online, David shared 30 images with students online in advance to prepare for the session.
The session, delivered through Blackboard Collaborate is available with a UoB login at the bottom of this page. It follows a quiz based format that the students could go through in advance. In the live session, David talks through the cases with the students who can ask questions in the chat box in Collaborate. It was helpful for David to be able to see and answer these questions live.
David uses a pen tool to highlight and draw on the images throughout the discussion. A magnifying tool also allows him to zoom in on important parts of the X-ray. A powerful affordance of Radiopedia is that it allows the sharing of multiple images that make up a cross section, for example, of an abdomen.
David’s own X-ray
An element of the quiz that makes it memorable whilst also delivering an important learning outcome is the inclusion of an x-ray of David’s own chest.
There is a temptation for students to find an issue that is not there, rather than give an x-ray the all clear. David includes one x-ray of himself in the tutorial, which does not exhibit any problems.
At UG level most students read something into his case. David certainly hopes they are wrong! At PG level, one or two suspect it is a normal scan,
In medical education the minority of the cases we show students are abnormal. Having the confidence to suggest the x-ray is normal is an important lesson in itself.
Radiopedia.org
Radiopaedia.org is a rapidly growing, open-edit radiology resource, compiled by radiologists and other health professionals from across the globe.
The site includes:
- Cases
- Quizes
- Articles
Results
It is difficult to compare the in-person session and the online version, or even to be certain how many students were actively taking part online, but postings to the chat suggested engagement and understanding. Equally, David doesn’t know if students viewed the pre-materials before the session, but by providing them, he gives students flexibility in planning their learning. With the return to in-person teaching, David plans to continue to send the quiz to students in advance.
Lessons Learned
- Tools like Radiopedia provide a wonderful resource of existing materials you can use in teaching. You can also contribute materials under a Creative Commons licence.
- Visual subjects like this lend themselves to online delivery.
- The remote nature of the session means talking to a blank screen – it so important to have two-way communication or interactivity through web cams being on and chat box.
- It is important to see what tools are available and how you can use them to meet your aims. Online training in how to use Collaborate was very helpful.
Guides
View the radiology quiz session (requires UoB login)