White Paper for
TAACCCT Grant Round Three South Dakota Allied Health Consortium
Healthcare Simulation Lab
Best Practices
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. This document is 100% funded by the South
Dakota Allied Health Training Consortium $2.5 million TAACCCT grant from the
U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. The
product was created by the grantee and does not necessarily reflect the official
position of the U. S. Department of Labor. The U. S. Department of Labor makes
no guarantees, warranties, or assurances of any kind, express or implied, with
respect to such information, including any information on linked sites and
including, but not limited to, accuracy of the information or its completeness,
timeliness, usefulness, adequacy, continued availability, or ownership. LATI is an
equal opportunity employer. Auxiliary aids and services are available upon
request to individuals with disabilities.
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Remote Labs:
NANSLO Usage Example
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The national awareness - medical personnel are at a shortage, especially within
the rural areas of the U.S. according to the National Rural Health Care Policy
Brief (Burrows et al, 2012). Conjointly, South Dakota health care needs are
recognized as Federally Designated Health Professional Shortage Areas and
Medically Underserved Areas.
Figure 1 https://doh.sd.gov
As part of a comprehensive methodology to address specific industry needs and
provide qualified health care providers in a timely manner, Lake Area Technical
Institute looked at innovative ways to establish science labs across all learning
modalities.
Starting with TAACCCT Grant Round Two, the Institute was assigned the use of
the North American Network of Science Labs Online (NANSLO) located at Red
Rocks Community College, Arvada, CO. The approach to use the NANSLO
innovation and the results of the implementation provided students of the allied
health programs at Lake Area Tech the opportunity to work with remote location
Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry labs.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 4
NEEDS ADDRESSED .......................................................................................... 4
PROCESS ............................................................................................................ 5
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 7
RESOURCES ....................................................................................................... 8
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INTRODUCTION
Lake Area Technical Institute provides a “superior, comprehensive technical
education that changes lives and launches careers.” As part of a comprehensive
methodology to address specific industry needs and provide qualified health care
providers in a timely manner, Lake Area Technical Institute looked at innovative
ways to establish science labs across all learning modalities. Remote labs in
Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry from Spring 2015 through Fall 2015 provided
the course structures for innovation.
Starting with TAACCCT Grant Round Two, Lake Area Technical Institute was
assigned the use of the North American Network of Science Labs Online
(NANSLO) located at Red Rocks Community College, Arvada, CO. Due to the
closing of the Red Rocks CC site during the current TAACCCT Grant Round
Three, NANSLO Montana Lab was made available, which is located at Great
Falls College Montana State University, Great Falls, MT.
Under the current grant round, four LATI programs are part of the South Dakota
Allied Health Consortium: Dental Assisting, Med/Fire Rescue, Medical Assisting,
and Practical Nursing.
NEEDS ADDRESSED
It was theorized from the progression of the round two TAACCCT grant that the
scope of the round three allied health programs may benefit from the lessons
learned in the implementation of remote labs. The following observations
exemplify the considerations for use of remote labs:
A. LATI students are choosing to enroll in online Chemistry and Inorganic
Chemistry courses. Prior to Fall 2015 labs were all conducted on-site or by
simulation. So, students would need to travel to the Institute for rigorous “lab
days” or work with virtual simulations that were rigorous but not as customizable
as desired.
B. Within the global community of online education, the development of remote
labs (Azad et al, 2012) has progressed to the level of rigor and relevance much
valued by LATI programs.
C. Two key academic personnel are in place at LATI to work within the
parameters of support for online remote lab implementation: Educational
Technology Specialist and Instructional Designer.
D. NANSLO’s consortium approach with allied health emphasis provides
(http://www.wiche.edu/nanslo/cheo) modern workforce personnel the access to
industry expected desktop and digital Web experiences.
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Process
A. Students who took the online lab courses were enrolled in various program
majors and at various points along their personal career pathway.
1. Students took the online lab courses:
a. As a requirement for program graduation as remote learners.
b. Strategically choosing the class for further education or workplace
promotion and followed LATI’s emphasis of continuous professional
development with Web and technology experience.
c. As scheduled online course access to fit with personal life and work.
2. The lab instructor chose NANSLO labs which fit the rigor and customized
the relevance he required as a content expert.
Figure 2 NANSLO Scheduler Example of Choices
B. The body of research available concerning remote labs for the sciences has
grown tremendously. NANSLO’s affiliation with the Western Interstate
Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) and higher education research
through such institutions as Cal State, MIT and Georgia Institute of Technology amongst many others over the past twenty years - were factors in implementing
best practices with the remote lab.
1. Lab modality studies through Cal State (Beltz et al, 2016) highlight the
need for instructor and student support of the Web access technology.
2. GIT’s collaborative lab recommendations (Rippel et al, 2009) with the
customization of the remote microscope and lab workbench played a key
part in the selection of pre-teach video, documents on how-to navigate
NANSLO’s web access and scheduling practice times for individual
students (http://www.wiche.edu/nanslo/lab-tutorials).
3. NANSLO meets scalability as each lab is customizable. MIT’s work
with scalability and sustainability (Azad et al, 2012) were factors from the
round two grant lessons learned and detailed through an evaluation tool Labs with Computer and Internet Technology Use by Students
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Figure 3 See completed evaluations in http://www.skillscommon.org repository.
C. Leading up to and during the implementation of the remote labs, the instructor
worked with LATI academic support personnel.
1. The Instructional Designer assisted in lesson development best practices.
2. The Educational Technology Specialist handled NANSLO lab contact,
scheduling and student support when requested by the instructor.
D. The Red Rocks Community College site provided the access for the NANSLO
labs chosen by the LATI instructor.
1. Many lab activity resources are available online and through the customer
interface for the existing NANSLO labs (http://www.wiche.edu/nanslo/labactivities).
2. During the current round three grant, Red Rocks CC NANSLO site and
activities are no longer available, and the materials and lesson possibilities
at the Montana site are not curriculum content the Chemistry instructor
selects.
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3. Other LATI course instructors have been invited to look at the offerings
available at the NANSLO Montana site.
CONCLUSION
Given that there is a strong need for Allied Health professionals in South Dakota,
Lake Area Technical Institute provides students strategic access to industry
driven training with varied modalities – face-to-face, hybrid and fully online of the
programs’ courses. In meeting student needs with the remote access for
program completion or online professional development needs, LATI worked with
NANSLO to establish best practices and rigorous remote location labs, which are
scalable.
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RESOURCES
Azad, A., Auer, M. and Harward, V. (2012). Internet accessible remote
laboratories: scalable E-learning tools for engineering and science
disciplines. Hershey, PA: Engineering Sciences Reference.
Beltz, D., Desharnais, R., Narguizian, P., and Son, J. (2016). Comparing
Physical, Virtual, and Hybrid Flipped Labs for General Education Biology.
Online Learning, 20(3) 228 - 243.
Burrows, E., Suh, R. and Hamann, D. (2012). National Rural Health Care Policy
Brief: Health Care Workforce Distribution and Shortage Issues in Rural
America. National Rural Health Association. Retrieved September 12,
2016, at http://www.ruralhealthweb.org
NANSLO Tutorials. (n.d.). North American Network of Science Labs Online
(NANSLO): Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.
Boulder, CO. Retrieved September 12, 2016
http://www.wiche.edu/nanslo/lab-tutorials.
Rippel, M., Panchal, J., Schaefer, D., & Mistree, F. (2009). Fostering
collaborative learning and educational mass customization in a graduate
level engineering design course. International Journal of Engineering
Education, 25(4).
South Dakota Department of Health – Office of Rural Health. (2016). Medically
Underserved. Retrieved September 12, 2016 at
https://doh.sd.gov/documents/Providers/RuralHealth/MUA.pdf .
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