Using Interactive Animations to Enhance Teaching, Learning, and Retention of Respiration Pathway Concepts in Face-to-Face and Online High School, Undergraduate, and Continuing Education Learning Environments

Abstract

One major tool set teachers/instructors can use is online interactive animations, which presents content in a way that helps pique students' interest and differentiates instructional content. The Virtual Cell Animation Collections (VCAC), developed from the Molecular and Cellular Biology Learning Center, has developed a series of online interactive animations that provide teacher/instructors and students with immersive learning tools for studying and understanding respiration processes. These virtual tools work as powerful instructional devices to help explain and reinforce concepts of metabolic pathways that would normally be taught traditionally using static textbook pages or by neumonic flashcards. High school, undergraduate, and continuing education students of today learn and retain knowledge differently than their predecessors. Now teachers face new challenges and must engage and assess students, within a small window during classroom instruction, but also have the skills to provide useful content in distance learning environments. Educators have to keep up with changing trends in education as a result of technological advances, higher student/teacher ratios, and the influence of social media on education. It is critical for teachers/instructors to be able to present content that not only keeps students interested but also helps bridge learning gaps. VCAC provides high school, undergraduate, and continuing education biology or life science teachers/instructors with classroom strategies and tools for introducing respiration content through free open source online resources. VCAC content supports the development of more inquiry-based classroom and distance-learning environments that can be facilitated by teachers/instructors, which helps improve retention of important respiration subject content and problem-based learning skills for students.