In a post a few weeks ago, I mentioned the exciting opportunity I was given to work with a medical school in Houston that was testing the efficacy of a cardiovascular unit that they had designed. A few of you asked for more information and now I have a chance to share!
The research program is through the Center for Educational Outreach at Baylor University College of Medicine. The cardiovascular unit, if effective, will be released on their website http://www.bioedonline.org/ where they already have a plethora of awesome interactive, online lessons and resources. I have used their online resources many times in the past (especially when I was student teaching in biology), and found the lessons and activities to be very engaging, comprehensive, and very visually appealing. They have everything from simulations to articles, videos, slides, and tutorials. I am so excited to learn about the results of the study and hopefully the unit will be available for everyone soon! Seeing it on paper in a big research binder and seeing it as an interactive, online unit will be so different, and it’s neat that I can say I played I role in that!
It is resources like this (the bioedonline.org) and others like the APS Archives (another incredible website) that make my life so much easier! It’s so helpful and exciting to have resources to refer to that I know are high quality, reliable, and accessible for both me and my students, and finding those kinds of resources has proven to be one of my toughest challenges this year. It’s difficult for me to trust online resources, but I can rest a little easier knowing they are backed by scholars, researchers, and academics. If you know of any others I should check out, please let me know, and if you have any other questions about the study with Baylor, ask away! I am not sure how much information I can disclose right now since it is an ongoing study, but I’d be more than happy to find out or share once the study ends!