Samantha Davis, clinical assistant professor for the Department of Respiratory Care has received the School of Allied Health Sciences Spotlight Award for her innovative teaching practice using 3D printing to display neonatal heart defects to her students.
Bob Wood, director of the School of Allied Health Sciences, has created the Spotlight Award to recognize individuals in the school who go above and beyond to achieve program objectives and create innovative teaching styles that encourage students to go beyond their major.
“We have wonderfully talented scholars, teachers, and community leaders who are deserving of recognition, and whose stories should be told as a way of strengthening our own sense of identity as a school,” said Wood.
Davis received the Spotlight Award for recognizing a need for her students and filling it with an outstanding solution. Davis recognized the need for a new teaching style of neonatal heart defects to her Neonatal/Pediatric Respiratory Care class, as typical teaching consisted of pictures from a textbook. In order to further demonstrate the defects, Davis partnered with the Boise State MakerLab to utilize 3D printers for her students to print and paint defects on a 3D heart. The innovative and visionary way for her students to study the heart defects allowed them to further understand where and how a defect effects a neonatal heart.
The Spotlight Award series is designed to recognize outstanding Allied Health Science faculty and staff for significant contributions to the discipline that help set the school’s programs apart as national leaders. The award will be given annually to at least one faculty or staff member from each department in the school.
Read more about Davis’ work with the MakerLab.