Open AccessSmartphone-assisted experimentation as a didactic strategy to maintain practical lessons in remote education: alternatives for physiology education during the COVID-19 pandemic
Author(s) -
Camilo LellisSantos,
Fernando Abdulkader
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
advances in physiology education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.501
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1522-1229
pISSN - 1043-4046
DOI - 10.1152/advan.00066.2020
Subject(s) - covid-19 , pandemic , distance education , process (computing) , data collection , computer science , purchasing , mobile device , medical education , infographic , mathematics education , psychology , medicine , world wide web , sociology , engineering , social science , operations management , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , data mining , operating system
Online and distance education may be dismissed by educators who argue that these methods are not equivalent to traditional face-to-face education due to the lack of laboratory classes. However, smartphone-assisted experimentation is an innovative and powerful didactic tool that helps educators in the teaching process of physiology, particularly in situations with a lack of financial support for purchasing laboratory equipment, or lack of support for homework and assignments, distance learning courses, and emergency remote education, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, we present the concept of the mobile learning laboratory (MobLeLab), which is a collection of smartphone applications that allow scientific data collection, such as physiological variables, for educational purposes. The three types of MobLeLabs (simulators, built-in, and plug-in) are presented, as well as ideas on how to use smartphone sensors to collect physiological data. Additionally, we elaborate on the principles of the protocols for physiology education with MobLeLabs and discuss their importance to fostering scientific method reasoning by students.