Using H5P-interactive content to engage undergraduate immunology students in T cell development 2868

Description T cell development is an important foundational concept for undergraduate immunology. A good understanding of this process equips students to better appreciate the central tenets of immunology, such as self/non-self discrimination, immune tolerance and MHC restriction. Like many undergraduate immunology courses, we teach T cell development in a lecture format. However, considering that sub-topics such as V(D)J recombination and thymic selection can be difficult to for students to engage with, we pair our lecture with a University of Sydney designed, out-of-class, active learning activity. Inspired by the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure®’ children’s books, the activity uses personification storytelling whereby students assume the role of an immune cell and navigate decision-making scenarios to ensure the cell’s appropriate development. The students engaged well with the activity and self-reported an increase in understanding of content, however, the original iteration built on Google Forms or H5P.org had limited capacity for teachers to assess student progress. Therefore, we migrated the activity to the licensed version of H5P, which with its user analytics, allows a more comprehensive assessment of student engagement and progress. This approach allows student misconceptions about content to be identified early and addressed in face-to-face contact hours, demonstrating the benefit of supplementing teacher-led activities with out-of-class, online active learning resources.