Health Sciences Classroom Services ensures that classroom environments support the unique and dynamic nature of health sciences curriculum. They recently moved into the new Health Sciences Education Center (HSEC) and prepared classrooms for when students return to campus. “Last week, I spent four days in HSEC walking all the rooms with the installers and designers to tie down the final tech. details. We pushed every button and flipped every switch. After four years of thinking of these spaces abstractly, getting to play in the rooms and seeing systems respond made everything much more real,” said V. Paul V., services coordinator for Health Sciences Classroom Services.
With years in the making, HSEC brings together interprofessional learners across the spectrum of health sciences. Classroom Services serve as a pivotal point of contact for students, faculty, staff, and administrators on classroom needs. They work with and between health sciences schools and departments to facilitate solutions to teaching space needs. They are an instrumental planning resource and manage classroom scheduling, technical support and consultation with health sciences school administration for 69 classrooms in the Health Sciences District, as well as seven classrooms on the St. Paul Campus. Classroom Services staff respond to technology help calls and provide five-minute onsite response times.
“We are ready and excited to support the schools and programs as they begin using this beautiful facility!” said Peg Brown, manager of Classroom & Planning Support Services for the health sciences.
The new classrooms in HSEC focus on active learning-style teaching and increase opportunities for collaboration among learners. They are distance learning-capable with, but not limited to, Rochester, Morris, Crookston, and Duluth campuses. The rooms have built-in classroom recorders with livestream capabilities. All classrooms and study spaces have wireless presentation devices to make collaboration easier with content on displays. All 28 classrooms are also Zoom capable. You can see a virtual tour of the classrooms in HSEC here.
“We're introducing new technology, and we've improved on our existing services by a great deal,” said V. Paul V. “We've shown professors the things HSEC will do for them, but we won't truly know how successful this building will be until we get people moving through and using our spaces.”
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