They say that good things come in threes and it certainly seems to be the case here. Colleen Farmer, professor in the University of Utah’s School of Biological Sciences, the Marriott Library, and Teaching and Learning Technologies (TLT) have come together to create a virtual tool for students in Farmer’s upper division anatomy class (Bio 3665 – Vertebrate Form and Function), to be taught in the spring.

“Students will be looking at form and function in vertebrates,” explains Farmer. “And it’s so exciting to be using virtual reality to really make this an active learning experience.”

What Farmer is talking about isn’t something that is easily described or illustrated in photographs or video. “You really have to be looking through the Hololens to see the kind of extraordinary learning that goes on here,” Farmer continues. “I’m really looking forward to seeing students use this technology come spring semester.

She uses the example of dissecting a dogfish in a traditional lab where there’s really only room for one person to be doing the dissecting and the other students huddle around to see what’s happening. “Using the VR dissecting technique, every student has their own dogfish and they’re able to work with the specimen as long as they need, removing various organs, examining the vascular system, and so on.”

Another powerful aspect of this approach is the use of a ‘multiplayer’ platform where all of the students can be in the same virtual space with the instructor, seeing each other as a virtual head with a name displayed, and sets of hands (wands), and talking with each other in real time.  The students can “walk” around in the space to see the anatomy from different points of view and the instructor can use a laser pointer to draw attention to particular features. Students therefore have the benefit of the student-student interactions of a regular classroom, which we all know can be very important for some students for their learning and for motivation, as well as student-teacher interactions in real time, all the while each is in the safety of their own homes.

So how is the library involved? This VR Project is moving forward with cooperative support between the Marriott Library, the School of Biological Sciences, and UEN/TLT. CARES funding in the amount of $162,500 has been granted to provide the software, laptop, and VR headsets that each student will check-out.

TLT is handling the ordering and processing of the systems needed. Once TLT receives all equipment, the library staff will install the software, catalog the equipment, and make the 24 systems available for students to checkout.

Tony Sams, New Media Projects Specialist, explains, “We have made a few changes to the laptop specs to support the memory needed for this robust software. At the end of the day, we’ll have 40 laptop/headset packages for students to check out. And these systems will take their learning to a whole new level.”

“I am so grateful to the folks at the Marriott library and Teaching and Learning Technologies for their hard work in making this great learning experience possible for our students.  We are on the cusp of developing a revolution in a teaching/learning tool that will be of great use beyond its obvious benefits during the COVID pandemic.”