Labs are a common component in nursing courses. In our health assessment course at York University, students attend a two-hour lecture followed a two-hour lab, where they put into practice the concepts covered in the lecture. The lab rooms are set up like healthcare facilities, and students take turns acting the role of a patent or a nurse and performing physical exams on one another under the eye of an instructor. The pandemic required that we move the laboratory simulations online, but we were surprised by how much a combination of digital and physical props could do to replace the institutional labs.
