Lawrence Whalen

My primary scholarly activities center on the design, development and evaluation of interactive multimedia programs to provide integrated instruction about veterinary neurobiology, mammalian functional anatomy and equine anatomy. For veterinarians, veterinary students and animal science students, effective learning occurs when the environment is intellectually challenging and requires interaction. This is referred to as active learning, where choices need to be made and where an investment of work leads to production of individual results. In this environment, primary responsibility for identifying and recognizing anatomical detail requires a student to actively navigate through the material, making decisions about how and when it is presented, and to use existing knowledge in a specific context (i.e. a clinical setting). This cycle of reinforcing and expanding knowledge through reuse and adaptation is the foundation of all good pedagogy. Students learn most effectively though doing, building upon what they know rather than observing the work product of someone else. Interactive images, QuickTime virtual reality dissections, and animations are tools correlated with clinical video clips in an interactive environment for this kind of non-linear learning. We are currently creating an interactive, educational, multimedia program on the anatomy of the dog using Quicktime VR 3D models, video, and graphics.