Tulsa Community College Professor Recognized For Bringing Virtual Lessons To Life

A Tulsa Community College assistant professor has been recognized for the creative way she’s teaching virtual biology.

"It really was serendipitous. It wasn't some grand plan, it was like, 'Let me try this,'" said Dr. Leann Fiore with Tulsa Community College. 

Virtual classes don't have to be boring. That is the mindset Dr. Fiore hopes her students walk away with after taking her classes.

"There is a reason we choose community college- we are all qualified to teach at a university - but community college's sole purpose is reaching into the community and lifting these students up and teaching them life skills," said Dr. Fiore. 

Dr. Fiore is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Tulsa Community College. Classes went online right before her students started dissections.

"It is so difficult to film a dissection because your hands are in the way. You need to make sure the camera is focused on the organ that you are focusing on and so I was like, 'I am just going to make my own,'" said Dr. Fiore. 

Instead of making any old video, she started using stop-motion animation to bring her lessons to life.

"By each frame being its own still image, nothing gets blurred. The organs are very crisp and clear, nobody's voice is irritating," said Dr. Fiore. 

She films the videos right from her home and started posting them to a YouTube page called Pop Up Biology, a page that now has more than 62,000 views.

She has won awards for this work, but her main motivation is that there was a need for these kinds of videos. She rose to meet the challenge, like educators across the country have been doing throughout this pandemic.

"If it is being used as a representation of what all of us are doing, like the attention is on me, but my colleagues are also doing amazing things," said Dr. Fiore. "I hope it shows that teachers are trying to find ways to get students to feel what they would feel in the classroom even though that is not possible sometimes."

You can find her YouTube channel here.