{"id":1719,"date":"2021-05-04T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2021-05-04T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/itl\/?p=1719"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:31:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:31:40","slug":"institute-fellows-2020-21-dr-maria-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/itl\/2021\/05\/04\/institute-fellows-2020-21-dr-maria-canal\/","title":{"rendered":"ITL Fellows: Reflecting on my project – Dr Maria Canal"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"MariaKicking off our Institute Fellows series is Dr Maria Canal\u00a0(SFHEA).\u202f Maria is a\u00a0Senior\u00a0Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences and Programme Director\u00a0for Neuroscience. She\u00a0was appointed as one of our inaugural\u00a0Institute of Teaching and Learning\u00a0Fellows in March 2020.\u202f Despite proposing her project before the onset of the pandemic, Maria proved to have chosen an incredibly topical subject as she focused her Fellowship project on the development of remote alternatives to laboratory practical classes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I applied\u00a0in January 2020\u00a0for one of the Inaugural Institute of Teaching and Learning Fellowships to\u00a0develop an online virtual science lab practical, little did I know that\u00a0soon\u00a0academia\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and our lives \u2013\u00a0were\u00a0going to undergo a radical change due to the Covid-19 pandemic.\u00a0With my Fellowship now nearing its end, I can only look back in amazement at what a rollercoaster\u00a0ride\u00a0this last year has been.<\/p>\n

What I have come to realise is that the lessons that we have learned and the processes that we have developed during this past year have the potential for a long-lasting impact on flexible learning and the future of higher\u00a0education as a whole.<\/p>\n

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, many higher education institutions were already starting to look into remote, online practical teaching because of its numerous benefits, both for students – virtual labs are flexible, accessible, personalised, interactive, provide risk-free environments and allow mistakes to be made – and institutions\u00a0 – virtual\u00a0practicals\u00a0improve teaching efficiency, address course capacity limitations, free up teaching labs, are cost-effective and are environmentally friendly. Practical classes are a key component in many\u00a0disciplines, but\u00a0adapting them to remote teaching and learning presents various challenges. There are different ways in which laboratory practical classes can be replaced by remote alternatives. For example, students can use specific software to simulate lab experiments, they can be asked to run simple experiments at home, they can be provided with remote access to lab equipment, they can be asked to watch life or pre-recorded experiments, or they can be provided with freely available data sets.<\/p>\n

When my Fellowship was awarded in March 2020, I was asked to fast-track my project:\u00a0developing online lab\u00a0practicals\u00a0had now become a priority for all science subjects.\u00a0Weeks of frantic work ensued,\u00a0where the first stage of my project\u00a0(reviewing\u00a0current science education resources and technology available for virtual labs)\u00a0was compressed\u00a0into three weeks instead of the\u00a0originally-planned\u00a03 months. Fortunately, the Institute\u00a0of Teaching and Learning\u00a0provided me with a lot of support, including a student partner,\u00a0Jessica Carroll,\u00a0and\u00a0signposting me to\u00a0an e-learning technologist, Ryan Metcalfe. The three of us worked enthusiastically over the next few months,\u00a0spurred on\u00a0by the\u00a0knowledge\u00a0that we were creating something\u00a0different\u00a0and exciting. By June,\u00a0our\u00a0first practical prototype was finished.<\/p>\n

The next step was to obtain\u00a0ethics approval\u00a0so that we could\u00a0test the practical prototype with\u00a0a group of volunteering\u00a0students\u00a0over the summer.\u00a0With the help of a new student partner,\u00a0Flavia Zhou,\u00a0by the end of September we\u00a0had collected\u00a0lots of useful\u00a0data and\u00a0feedback\u00a0on the practical\u2019s\u00a0functionality. The key lesson we learned from this feedback is that student-staff and student-student interactions are a critical aspect in any online course.\u00a0Opportunities for interactions should be\u00a0carefully planned\u00a0and strongly encouraged in any\u00a0type of\u00a0online course, be it practical-based or not. This helps students check their understanding over time and collaborate and interact with their peers, thus fostering a sense of community.\u00a0This is crucial, especially given the feelings of isolation and lack of motivation that many of our students are experiencing\u00a0at the moment.<\/p>\n

We\u00a0then\u00a0updated the new practical for delivery to second year undergraduate Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroscience & Psychology students in March 2021. The online practical was\u00a0positively\u00a0received\u00a0by students\u00a0and\u00a0the group activities and opportunities\u00a0for interaction between staff and students\u00a0that we introduced\u00a0were welcomed and valued. Although\u00a0students\u00a0did not perform experiments at the bench, the laboratory simulations allowed students to collect data, analyse it, draw significant conclusions,\u00a0and present their results, which is the essence of scientific research. Therefore, online virtual\u00a0practicals\u00a0can provide a powerful form of active learning.<\/p>\n

Although\u00a0there are\u00a0now\u00a0only a few weeks left\u00a0of\u00a0my\u00a0Fellowship, there is still work to do.\u00a0I have\u00a0already\u00a0shared online teaching\u00a0resources<\/a>\u00a0and I am developing additional ones, to help anyone wanting to develop their own online courses.\u00a0I am also\u00a0producing\u00a0a demo video\u00a0of the online practical, which I will be\u00a0presenting\u00a0at the\u00a0Advance HE\u00a0Teaching and Learning\u00a0conference<\/a>\u00a0this summer.<\/p>\n

Even though\u00a0the future looked uncertain when we went into the first lockdown last March, I think that the Covid-19 pandemic has unwittingly provided us with a unique opportunity:\u00a0that of capitalising on the\u00a0lessons learned and\u00a0the\u00a0online\u00a0resources developed\u00a0over the past year so that we can\u00a0transform the future of educational delivery.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0<\/b>you\u2019d\u00a0<\/b>like to know more, please see the workshop recording and the\u202f<\/b>Practical Teaching Resources<\/b><\/a>\u202fthat Maria has developed on the FBMH webpages<\/b>\u00a0or feel free to get in touch with her at\u00a0<\/b>maria.canal@manchester.ac.uk<\/a>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

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