As I continue along the steep and windy path of learning and applying the H5P technology to my Dental Hygiene General and Oral Pathology course, I believe I can answer the question that I posed in the 2021 UNH Open Pedagogy blog, that is, “What are the next steps with H5P?” Allow me to elaborate on both the challenges and the triumphs of the next steps I experienced relative to my journey with the H5P technology (H5P, 2023).
Introduction: Throughout my journey as an educator, I have always sought innovative ways to engage my students and enhance their learning experience. One technology that has significantly impacted my teaching practice is H5P. Over the past two years, I have delved into the interactive learning space of H5P, exploring its features and incorporating it into my instructional strategies. In this blog, I will reflect upon my learning experiences with H5P and highlight the achievements I have attained through its implementation.
Background: When I first encountered H5P, I was intrigued by its potential to create interactive and engaging content. I embarked on a journey of self-guided learning, exploring various H5P content types, such as interactive videos, presentations, quizzes, and branching scenarios. I dedicated oodles of time to understanding the platform’s functionalities, experimenting with different templates, and learning how to customize and tailor H5P content to suit the specific learning needs of my students.
Enhanced Student Engagement: One of the most notable achievements I have experienced through H5P is the enhanced engagement of my students. By incorporating interactive H5P activities into my lectures and homework assignments, I have witnessed a significant increase in student participation and interest. The multimedia-rich nature of H5P content has captured their attention, making learning more enjoyable and memorable, in their learning spaces. Students have embraced interactive learning elements, such as crossword puzzles, drag-and-drop exercises, fill-in-the-blank questions, and interactive video presentations, which have promoted active learning and critical thinking.
Adaptive Learning: H5P’s has allowed me and my senior dental hygiene students to create adaptive learning experiences for my students. By utilizing features like branching scenarios and interactive videos, I have been able to design content that adapts to each student’s pace and level of understanding, including visual, auditory, and read/write adaptabilities. These teaching strategies matched to the learner’s study strategies have empowered students to take ownership of their learning, enabling them to progress at their own pace while receiving immediate feedback and reinforcement.
Assessing Learning Outcomes: With H5Ps’ diverse range of assessment types, including self-graded homework assignments, in-class presentations, and authentic branching scenarios, I have been able to design formative assessments that accurately measure students’ understanding. The instant feedback provided by H5P has allowed students to identify areas of strength and areas that require further instruction, enabling me to provide targeted support to my students. Moreover, homework assignments have been created and uploaded to the Canvas Student Learning Management system, specifically to reinforce (challenging) content presented in lectures. Through Canvas, H5P interactive assignments permit students the opportunity to self-guide, self-grade, and continuously review all content in the General and Oral Pathology lectures by way of self-paced, 24-7 viewing of the content.
Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing: Another activity I attribute to H5P is the opportunity for knowledge sharing among colleagues at a national dental educational conference slated for 2024, pending its acceptance for the TechExpo category. My goal is to showcase the H5P platform’s ability to facilitate student group activities and collaborative learning that can foster a sense of community that should be shared with other dental educators. Furthermore, a good percentage of the 39 H5P interactive content pieces, created to date by senior dental hygiene students, have fostered a collaborative learning-teaching environment, encouraged peer-to-peer learning, and reinforced the development of course content through peer review and feedback. Access this link to view H5P interactive content: https://newhaven.h5p.com/content/1291885579381074898 (authentic patient case of canker sores via a branching scenario)
https://newhaven.h5p.com/content/1291690009420568198 (demonstration of an oral cancer screening via an interactive video)
https://newhaven.h5p.com/content/1291709321173560488 (drag and drop radiology images that match their descriptive terms)
In conclusion, my experience with H5P technology has been transformative, both in terms of my teaching practice and student outcomes. Through my exploration and implementation of H5P, I have witnessed increased student engagement, personalized learning experiences, enhanced assessments, and improved collaboration among students. H5P has become an invaluable tool in my educational arsenal, allowing me to create interactive and immersive learning environments that meet the needs of my diverse student population. As I continue to grow and adapt as an educator, I am excited to further explore the possibilities that H5P offers, including its capability to promote interactive content to be published as open educational resources. My next goal is to continue to inspire my colleagues to embrace H5P for all the abovementioned reasons and to inspire and empower students’ untapped learning potential.
Reference
H5P. (2023). Examples and downloads. https://h5p.org/content-types-and-applications
