I usually have students color the ear to learn the anatomy, but coloring remains a difficult task when students are working remotely. Drag-and-drop activities are easier to assign through Google Classroom or other LMS.

I still prefer the ear anatomy coloring, mainly because coloring in general, asks students to slow down a think about how the parts are organized. When students label diagrams, I find they often focus more on memorizing the order of the lines and do not pay as much attention to the organization of the parts.

Sometimes, I’ll take the same image and rearrange how the numbers of arrows are organized and students complain that it’s not the same photo. Why? Because they didn’t learn how the structures fit together.

This activity can be a substitute for the coloring exercise. Students first drag the labels to the image on Google slides. In the next step, they type the labels directly into text boxes.

Students can also practice labeling the ear using Quizlet.

In person, students can play with ear models. Small ones are reasonably priced, so I usually have enough for each table.