The University of Western Australia (UWA) teaching semester (23rd July – October 26th) is about to end. Professor John Campbell and I have presented lectures to UWA histology students enrolled in:

• Health Science/Biomedical Science
• Medicine and Dentistry

For our UWA histology students, we use Histology Online as the primary teaching resource. We supervise 1 laboratory practical session every 3 weeks for 1-2 hours.

John and I have been teaching histology together for over 10 years. But we are academics at two different universities. John comes here to UWA (for 10-12 weeks) from the Department of Neurobiology at The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

John Campbell, UCLA

I have previously gone to UCLA and taught in John’s histology course. This teaching collaboration has had many benefits including the presentation of histology courses that meet all learning outcomes expected of histology courses provided within Australian and USA Medical, Dental, Health and Biomedical Science curricula.

John Campbell and I will continue working together to further develop histology-online.

At the University of Western Australia, our School offers histology courses to:

• Medical and Dental students
• Health Science/Biomedical Science students
• Physiotherapy and Podiatric Medicine students

These students study the histology of “Basic Tissues” and the “Organs systems” – but at various levels depending on their specific curricula.

This year, teaching histology here in the School of Anatomy and Human Biology at The University of Western Australia has been very different for me. This is the first year my students have been accessing Histology Online.

I still present lectures to each cohort of students. Histology Online provides students a visual (image based) description of all the tissues and organs. These images not only support the content delivered in lectures but engage the student to learn the necessary material in an interactive and more interesting way.

Students have access to review quizzes to confirm their levels of achievements of learning outcomes. These quizes then redirect them to remedial learning if required. And what is appealing to the students is that they can access all this material at their own pace. This can mean any time of the day or night, and they can get access anywhere they have an Internet connected computer.

Students now spend far less time attending formal laboratory practical classes. Instead of conducting the usual 2-3 hour practical histology classes each week for each topic (as has been the case in previous years delivering this course) students now complete only 1 hour every 3 weeks That 1 hour lab is an opportunity for them to examine histological sections similar (but not necessarily the same section) to those they study on Histology Online.

There are a number of reasons why less lab time is now needed.

First, there is less emphasis now for medical, dental, physiotherapy and podiatric medicine students to be highly competent in examining histological sections of all body tissues and organs using a microscope. Why bother putting the demands of 3 hour practical classes in histology each week in their curriculum? They certainly do need to know the histological structure of tissues and organs. But they can now receive that information online.

They should have some skills in using a microscope – but this is adequately achieved with a one hour session every 3 weeks as a review exercise after accessing the appropriate topic and using the computerised microscope in Histology Online.

This resource seems to suit present day medical and dental curricula centred on problem based learning and/or systems based learning. Students can independently gain relevant histological knowledge (when necessary) in a self-directed learning environment, and they response to this option has been very positive.

Secondly, for students studying Health Science/Biomedical Science there is a greater need for them to be competent in use of the microscope in examining tissues/organs. Many may enter professional positions and research programs etc. where microscope skills are required. So, there is a greater need for lab attendance – but still their hours of attendance can be significantly reduced from what may have previously been required. If a student uses Histology Online then they can quite adequately identify tissues/organs using a microscope if and when necessary even though they may have not encountered these tissues/organs in lab classes.

I no longer present a “prelab” to explain all the class slides and direct students how to find the various histological features, nor do I distribute a lab manual anymore. All relevant materials are within Histology Online, and students can access these directives anytime they like.

For example, after studying the “Blood” module, a student can sit at a microscope and examine a blood smear and verify they can find and identify the various blood cells. And they can do this very quickly (a matter of minutes). They have already gained knowledge on the histological and functional uniqueness of each blood cell type online. Similarly, students can study other tissues/organs and body systems in their own time and subsequently view a real histological sections later more effectively and in less time.

Other time consuming class activities I no longer need to do include:

• Setting up practice examination/quizzes.
• Providing demonstration material to be set up under microscopes at each lab session.
• Use of oil immersion lenses in lab sessions.