Hands-on 3D models are one of the most important tools in the anatomy educator’s toolbox; however, the cost of commercial models or donor organs can be prohibitive for many institutions. The recent explosion of 3D printing technology, combined with surface scanning and digital 3D modeling, can reduce the cost of anatomical models and increase access to resources. Moreover, recent meta-analyses have highlighted the value of 3D printing in anatomy education. Despite these benefits, anatomists face barriers to 3D printing, such as finding or building digital models, choosing a printer, or lacking time to integrate them into courses. The goal of this study was to create a low-cost streamlined workflow for the development of open access 3D printable organ models, along with user-friendly “lab kits” to facilitate the implementation of these tools for interactive hands-on learning.
The "VECTOR:Engineering a Trajectory of Success" project addresses a critical challenge in engineering education by developing open-source interactive visualizations for Statics, Dynamics, and Mechanics of Materials courses, where students often struggle to connect mathematical principles with spatial concepts. Our consortium of Colorado institutions (CSU-FC, CSU-Pueblo and CSM) is creating multi-dimensional, animated, and interactive computational models that bridge engineering theory with diverse real-world applications, while also producing 2D resources to teach students how to visualize in 3D and communicate in 2D. With guidance from an advisory board of industry partners and educational institutions, we're designing these open educational resources to be inclusive, promote student success across simple to complex concepts, and strengthen the culture of open resources in engineering education. This collaboration aims to fill significant gaps in available engineering materials and support a broader range of learners, including neurodivergent students who face additional challenges with spatial visualization. The project is part of the OpenTextbook federal grant program from the Department of Education and funding is over $2M over three years. In the first phase of the project, we brought together faculty who teach these courses in the region to identify the most important things to be addressed in the project and will be employing students to help with development. We will share out plans and roadmap for the project and show examples of visualizations.
Labs and their accompanying manuals are a fundamental component of most foundational science courses. In contrast to costly and inflexible commercially-produced manuals, OER manuals offer flexible, equitable, student-centered resources that are tailored to courses, learners, instructors, departments, and institutions. This session will showcase the collaborative work of the Aims Community College Science Department to create and adopt seven high-quality illustrated OER lab manuals for Biology, Physics, Geology, Astronomy, and Microbiology. We sought to redefine OER expectations while both significantly reducing costs for students and creating resources that can be modified and adopted by other institutions. We invite you to discover how faculty-created OERs can benefit both students and faculty alike, and to learn best practices for producing your own impactful OERs. This work was funded through a series of grants awarded by the Colorado Department of Higher Education.
Images are a great way to enhance the educational value and universal design of Open Educational Resources. However, creating and finding openly licensed images can be labor intensive and sometimes requires searching many specialized repositories. Health sciences images are even more challenging to find. This presentation will share how PubMed, a free and open database for biomedical research, can also be used to find Creative Commons licensed images that can be used in OER materials. On the Anschutz Medical Campus, this method has been used to find images for a nursing pathophysiology book. A health sciences librarian and a nursing faculty will walk attendees through the process of entering search terms and identifying the open access articles that have images.
