Teaching first year physiology with LabTutor

Since ADInstruments began in 1988, the revolutionary LabTutor software for PowerLab systems has been one of our most innovative developments for life science teaching. This month, we’re focusing on two different institutions that have made LabTutor a core tool in their first year physiology practical programs.

Case Study 1: University of Otago, New Zealand

Over 1800 first year students enrolled in Human Body Systems I as part of Otago’s foundation year for dentistry, medical laboratory science, medicine, pharmacy and physiotherapy degrees.

These big student numbers meant that the Otago physiology department had to administer hundreds of human physiology experiments within strict time limits every week. During this intense teaching period, the educators found that LabTutor "made physiological recordings very accessible to a first year audience. Students with a wide range of abilities were successfully recording and measuring their own data."

Read the complete University of Otago LabTutor Case Study [PDF]

Case Study 2: University of Western Sydney, Australia

In 2007, Australia's newest School of Medicine opened at the University of Western Sydney’s Campbelltown Campus. The Physiology Department selected LabTutor with PowerLab systems as a key teaching tool for teaching their first undergraduate group of over 200 students.

LabTutor is popular in class, with students requesting more Labtutor experiments as part of a recent survey. LabTutor has also proven popular with administrators, as a single academic can now supervise two-hour laboratory classes, compared to the up to four demonstrators required in other laboratories.

Read the complete University of Western Sydney Case Study [PDF]

More flexibility with LabTutor v2.0 and LabAuthor

We are able to customize the experiments to suit our situation. Further, we can easily modify a lab while the lab rotation is running – that is, if we encounter a problem during a two-week lab rotation, we can immediately alter the file.

Dr Janice Bolter and Ms Justine Dallimore
University of Otago

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