Ears, feet and injuries: The development of project based learning materials in Forensic Science

www.derby.ac.uk/science
Ears, feet and injuries: The
development of project based
learning materials in Forensic
Science
David Bryson – Biological and Forensic Sciences
BSc Anatomy CertEd MIMI RMIP FHEA

Project based learning
 What is project based learning?
 Creating learning experiences
 New project – Causation of injuries
 Developing – Feet and gait analysis
 Maturing – Ear identification
 Supporting materials

WHAT IS PROJECT BASED
LEARNING?
Critical thinking
Group work
Communication

Project based learning - Definition
 Project-based learning is an instructional method
that provides students with complex tasks based
on challenging questions or problems that involve
the students' problem solving, decision making,
investigative skills, and reflection that includes
teacher facilitation, but not direction.

What is needed?
 Collection of resources or data, own direct
observations or measurements.
 A learning activity that encourage students to
engage with the resource/data.
 Resulting in findings that can be shared with
others, especially where there is a suite of
projects/learning activities.
 Self-contained enough to last a 3 hour session
but provoking enough to encourage deep
learning, further research and work

CREATING LEARNING
EXPERIENCES

Causation of injuries: Lecture based
 A lecture describing injuries with plenty of
“interesting” photographs.
 Organized into categories/classification of
injuries.
 Linked to telling whether injuries are pre-, peri- or
post-mortem.
 “I like hearing the sound of my own voice but are
students engaged and learning?”

CAUSATION OF INJURIES:
PROJECT BASED
Can be undertaken individually or in small groups

Introduction and context
 Background reading as
notes, including
terminology A-Z
 Online lecture in
advance
 Links to further
relevant
books/readings

Series of photographs of injuries

Report sheets for findings

Learning activity/instructions
In this instance kept simple as instructions on the
case study sheet.
 Mark the location of the injury or injuries on the
diagram
 Description of injuries
 Indication of what caused the injury or injuries
from your observations
 Likely time of injury from what you can observe
Pre-mortem ☐ Peri-mortem ☐ Post-mortem ☐

Including examples from literature

What worked and developments
 Students tended to circle areas on diagrams rather
than draw in areas of injury.
 Some good observations when began to look at
patterns.
 Suggestions for more work students find their own
papers/photographs to use or provide more
 Next step could be students develop their own
materials/injury sources from research papers that
then use to test others in class.
 Wider range of diagrams for sheets to suit range of
injuries/cases

FEET AND GAIT ANALYSIS

Introduction – Short lecture and learning
activity sheet (Silly walks)

Project 1 – Variability in foot shape

Statistical analysis
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Right Left Right Left
2011 2012
Squared
Morton's or Greek
Egyptian

Project 3 – Hallux valgus

Project 4 – Eversion to inversion

What works and developments
 Has to be signposted in advance so students
come with drawings of their own feet reluctant to
get involved in bare feet in class.
(Like to move to scans!)
 Students don’t always believe me!
 Quite a few have gone out on own and videoed
themselves and seen that it was true.
 Are more anatomical areas of feet/ankles to
explore and relationships with footwear.

EARS &
EAR IDENTIFICATION

Each group has own information pack
 Instruction sheet for their part of the project.
 Set of images of ears 15 pages of A4 giving you
a total of 59 pairs of ears, this is sufficient to
enable some statistics/analysis to be undertaken.
 Copies of the ears & earprint handout
 Copies of original references related to their part
of the ear/ears.

5 separate projects
① Overall shapes of ears – Round, Oval,
Triangular or Square.
② Morphology of the anti-helix crura.
③ Variations in the helix, specifically the auricular
tubercle or Darwin's tubercle.
④ Right and Left ears are identical or are they?
⑤ What is the frequency of ear ornaments,
piercings and their positions?

Example 1 – Overall shape of the ears
 Ears have been described as Oval, Round,
Rectangular and Triangular. How easy is it to match
an ear to a shape?
 Do you all agree about ears and their shape or is
there a certain amount of inter-observer or even
intra-observer error?
 Is this the best way to describe the overall shape?
 Could you work out a better system or revise how
this one is described so that it is easier to match ears
to a particular shape?
 Are the statistics for our sample similar to those from
other references?

Why it works
 Sounds very easy until students start working on
the projects.
 There a range of complexities e.g.
 References may not be very useful or accurate
 Can all images be included
 How do shapes relate to impressions.
 Moving from B&W into shades of grey – on the
balance of probabilities, individual’s views and so
inter- and intra-observer error.

Levels of learning and understanding
 Projects need to be appropriate for the level of
learning students are at or reaching.
 If projects are too open ended leaves students
floundering.
 Some projects will work at Level 4 (HE1), Level 5
(HE2) and Level 6 (HE3).
 Some projects require a greater understanding
and critical awareness to really get underneath
the surface of what is been asked.

SUPPORTING MATERIALS

Pedagogical basis
 There is the whole realm of Instructional Design
Models for learning: ICARE, 4C/ID, Pebble-in-
the-Pond (Merrill), Laurillard’s Conversational
Model, ADDIE.
 These are useful to develop an understanding of
how to construct learning experiences but still
have to have the initial ideas and subject based
need.

Weblinks
 Commoncraft YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMCZvGesRz
8
 Project Based Learning online http://pbl-
online.org/
 Edutech wiki
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Project-
based_learning

David Bryson
www.derby.ac.uk/scienceCladonia gracilis, Sidlaw Hills, Dundee
http://www.cladonia.co.uk
d.bryson@derby.ac.uk

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