Student-centered Development of an e-Learning courseware for Metabolic Pathways

Author(s)
Bernard Y.N. Ng, Department of Medicine and Geriatrics, Princess Margaret Hospital, Hong Kong, HKSAR
Daisy M.H. Chen, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, HKSAR
Jessie S.W. Tse, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, HKSAR
Rebecca K. Y. Lee, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, HKSAR

Abstract
Animated pedagogical agents (APAs) are increasingly developed in the educational field to motivate students’ learning and improve learning outcomes. However, dissociation between teachers and the courseware engineers during APA development has been a known limitation. Therefore, a student-centered approach by a three-party team model – including a student designer, a teacher, and an information technologist – was adopted for e-Learning courseware development to bridge the gap between teachers and courseware developers. An e-Learning courseware Metabolism Metro was subsequently developed with the use of design thinking for Urea Cycle for metabolic teaching. The subject chosen for courseware development was based on students’ comments about difficulties in learning metabolism. The Urea Cycle was illustrated as a railway metro line, and the teaching contents were presented as cartoony-styled animations. This project was a case study in which the student designer was also a learner in metabolism, which the student designer was highly motivated to self-learn metabolism to complete the tasks and therefore the student designer’s own subject knowledge was reinforced. Students’ feedback was collected early within two weeks upon release of the courseware. Positive feedback was received from students, suggesting that involving students in courseware development may facilitate their learning in relevant subjects.

Keywords
Medical education, biochemistry, metabolism, student-centered, online courseware

Cite this paper
Bernard Y.N. Ng, Daisy M.H. Chen, Jessie S.W. Tse, Rebecca K. Y. Lee, Student-centered Development of an e-Learning courseware for Metabolic Pathways, SCIREA Journal of Education. Vol. 8 , No. 3 , 2023 , pp. 109 - 121 . https://doi.org/10.54647/education880439

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