Excellence in teaching

Geoffrey Meyer is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Human Biology. He won the Excellence in Innovation in Teaching Award in 1998 for the innovation 'Histology Practical Assistant'. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

'Histology' is concerned with the structure and function of the tissues of the body and organ systems. Traditionally, each of the 26 lectures in our histology programme is followed by a three-hour histology practical class involving large numbers of students sitting at a microscope station and viewing a collection of sections taken from body organs and tissues. In addition, there may be available a collection of photographs and electron micrographs for students to view. A lab sheet (or manual) directs students to the features to look for in each slide or photograph, and I usually begin the practical session with a 20-30 minute 'prelab' outlining the details on the slides that students need to pay particular attention to. During the practical, a number of part-time and full-time staff assist students having difficulties in locating histological features on their class slides. It is the expectation that at the completion of the practical each student has a sound knowledge of the histological structure of the tissue/organs under consideration.

Teaching any histology course has always been an expensive exercise due to:

1. large numbers of staff required to assist students in the practical sessions.
2. the need for expensive teaching resources such as high quality microscopes and class slide collections for each student.
3. the constant maintenance of these resources by staff, or the replacement of these resources due to 'wear and tear'.

The innovation 'Histology Practical Assistant' has reduced teaching costs enormously both in salaries (faculty staff are no longer needed to assist in practical sessions) and in resources required (there is reduced usage of class microscopes and tissue sections). It is a Web-based teaching programme in practical histology, providing a comprehensive, interactive and self-paced learning guide for identifying histological features on tissue sections. Specific features about this programme can be viewed on the website http://histology.indelta.com.au/Frontweb/Demonstration/.

Whilst the content of my lectures are informative about research advances in the discipline of histology, the computer programme can reinforce this aspect of my teaching emphasis. Each of the 20 subject areas covered in the curriculum (e.g. skin, bone, muscle, nerve, cardiovascular system, urinary system etc.) contains a link to current research interests and major advances pertinent to that subject area. This link reinforces the nexus between teaching objectives and current research endeavours and aims to impress upon the students that what they learn is what is currently researched by the scientific community - both locally and world-wide.

The 'Histology Practical Assistant' is currently being licensed for use by a number of university departments throughout the world responsible for teaching histology to medical, dental and biomedical students. Education now is a very marketable product and it is a venture in which I believe it is important for this university to participate. The computer screen is the future classroom and so the production of any computer-aided learning resource has the possibility of high demand world-wide.