Students Voice in the Design and Development of an Interactive and Bilingual 3D Platform for Guided Anatomy Learning
Abstract: Teaching and learning at the university level are informed more and more by the importance of taking into consideration learners' needs and styles. Game-based learning and 3D interactive platforms are increasingly used in healthcare because they provide the affordances to be more inclusive teaching tools and to better engage learners. In anatomy courses, students particularly struggle to establish a mental map of the brain which is arguably one of the most complex organs of the human body. Although a wide range of tools already exists, they do not highlight the functional relationships between elements of the brain that are necessary to build an accurate mental image. We applied the principles of the Universal Design for Learning framework to guide the design and the development of a bilingual learning application that allows learners to understand pathways in the brain better. Our scenario-based 3D application was developed using an iterative process. After testing two versions with students, we report here the students’ feedback gathered on the most recent iteration of our prototype. The present analysis examines the overall feedback regarding the prototype in terms of accessibility, usability, scenarios, visual design, navigation and the bilingual feature. The constant improvement of the application will allow us to provide students with an effective learning tool that can help them with the mental visualization of anatomical structures such as the brain.