By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
Israeli universities will be re-opening “in a limited format” upon approval from their Health Ministry, according to the May 9 issue of “The Jerusalem Post.” What Israel recognizes and the United States college administrators do not, is the inability to replace “laboratory classes and hands-on workshops.”
Today in the U.S., online “simulated labs” are being touted as equal or even better. Such claims ignore the many properties of reality-based experiences that are missing in computer simulations. The below lists the values of real labs and the utter failure of online simulations.
Immediacy. Our brains pay attention to the here-and-now. Video of a lecture or of a dissection that is not happening now, is history. It does not trigger the attention that immediacy requires. This is also the major shortcoming of asynchronous lectures, no different from the failed television courses of the 1970s.
Genuine multisensory interaction. Students who memorize words or pictures do not associate anatomy terms with real tissues. Students who have seen and held the organs of an animal in a laboratory have rich mental context to remember these structures through memories laid down by feel. Computer simulations may claim to be “interactive” but that refers to a trivial property of providing different media responses when typing on a keyboard or clicking a mouse.
Automatic manipulation skills. Many students understand the need for a sports players to repeat an action over and over until it becomes automatic or “second nature.” Sometimes named “muscle memory,” it is only acquired by physical practice. This sense of touch is not only an important input for students to understand the nature of organs, but with repetition, provides the skills for careful surgery. Medical doctors use this sense in “palpation,” the diagnosis of organs by feel.
Learning to observe. Observing nature closely for detail is a learned skill. Organs are often color-coded in books. In reality, a student must probe and trace which tissues are connected to others in order to identify the organ. An earthworm’s digestive system has two bulges. Pressing on one that is empty and collapses reveals the crop, a storage organ. Pressing the solid and firm bulge reveals the gizzard, a muscular grinding organ.
Motivation. We strive for basic biology literacy for all. But some students will become motivated from interaction with real organisms and want to enter medicine as a career. Such motivation is rarely provided by media. Performing to please a teacher is weak motivation. Being able to successfully interact with real material is real success handling the real world, and is not dependent upon other’s judgement.
Playing on the surface of the real. Textbooks and online media portray “perfect” examples. But real anatomy varies from these textbook-perfect images. Some specimens will vary, being left-right reversed or possessing four kidneys rather than two. A good laboratory instructor will detect such variations and draw every student’s attention to them.
Test-truthfulness. Only genuine materials and experiments are test truthful. Simulations only exhibit perfect results, or provide a programmed range of variation. Real labs provide test truthfulness including the important lessons of failure. Textbooks and online simulations will continue to need revision as we move ahead and continue refining our understanding. Real labs have all the truth in them for the looking.
Career Motivation. Real labs lead some students to go beyond the lesson and conduct additional real experiments, a desire not promoted by passive simulations where students fail to interact with reality.
Universality. Regardless of culture or language, laboratory work confirms that the science results are genuine. The Russian scientist Trofim Lysenko promoted a wrong idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics through textbooks. But real laboratory results eventually showed it to be incorrect.
Real consequences. Genuine experiences and experiments are naturally exciting. Veteran biology teachers know that the only way a student overcomes a fear of snakes is to see other students handle a harmless snake without harm. And when a teacher lays the coils into the trembling hands of the student, the trembling stops. In-hand experience accomplishes what cannot be accomplished by any other method.
Respect. Biologists and medical doctors who have gone through extensive laboratory-based education operate with a greater respect for the complex internal anatomy because they now have a deep and genuine understanding. Being squeamish about blood or feces is not positive or neutral, but a handicap to students who one day will need to diaper an infant or apply a band-aid. Good lab instructors treat their animal specimens and human cadavers with respect and require their students to do likewise.
Affordability. Digital media programs are more expensive because they are soon obsolete due to the short life of computer hardware and software. And online simulations fail to do the jobs described above.
Today, digital enthusiasts proclaim that all classwork should have a digital component. Why? Most online materials are inaccurate or distorted. Only real experiences provide the basis for developing accurate meaning.
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities in 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.