Virtual labs in science classes prepare Chamberlain College of Nursing students for success

Dr. Puja Shahi is the Associate Dean of Faculty and the Associate Dean of General Education at Chamberlain College of Nursing, Chamberlain University.

Chamberlain University has a 130-year history in healthcare education and currently serves Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students across 15 states on 22 campuses. In 2018, they wanted students in areas where campuses were not located to be able to access education, so they started using Labster to supplement online classes.

The University has since continued to use Labster for both online classes and to accompany wet labs for students taking in-person classes as both pre and post virtual labs. They’ve found that the students can see value and connection to nursing in the science they’re learning in a way they could not before Labster.

Most used simulations:

• Acids and Bases: Acidity and Alkalinity in Everyday Substances
• Atomic Structure (Principles): Atoms and isotopes
• Chemistry Safety
• Homeostatic Control: How does the human body keep itself in balance?
• Introduction to Food Macromolecules
• Introduction to Protein Synthesis
• Ionic and Covalent Bonds
• Lab Safety
• Microscopy
• Periodic Table of Elements: Get the table organized in time!
• Protein Denaturation
• Stoichiometry: Avogadro’s number and molecular calculations

An Interview with Dr. Puja Shahi

Labster mapped to their curriculum:

“We were weighing our options but chose Labster because the simulations very closely mapped to our curriculum and the lab experiments our students did. We successfully did a course-wide mapping for all of our science classes.”

Connecting science to nursing:

“The students enrolled in our science courses are nursing students. Labster helps us connect science courses to the nursing courses where students used to see them as just prerequisite, something to get done and then move on. But with Labster, we were able to show nursing students the info they learned in their science courses is related to what they’ll see in their clinicals and in nursing courses.”

Access to all kinds of labs:

“Some of these experiments involve pathogenic microorganisms that we cannot use in our labs. We could not gain access to these microorganisms, even for our on-site students. We couldn’t show them how important they are. With Labster, we can.” 

Labster as a pre and post lab tool:

“We have found in a post-Covid era, now we’re using Labster in a variety of ways. We use them as a pre-lab. Even if the on-site students are doing the experiments on site while we also use Labster to reinforce the concepts they’ve learned. So I think it’s a really good platform.” 

Saving time in the lab:
“A lot of these experiments, if you do in a wet lab, it’ll take days to complete. With Labster, students can complete simulations in under an hour, wherever they want, and they can go back and review these simulations, whereas, in a wet lab, they couldn’t do this. Virtual labs help students review material and reinforce the material in different ways.”

Seamless LMS integration:

“Once we had identified the Labster simulations we wanted to use, we easily integrated Labster into our LMS, Canvas. We didn’t want our IT team to have to struggle to integrate every time, and they didn’t have to.”