Being a First Time Flipper is Challenging and Worthwhile to Increase Student Understanding of Cell Signaling

To learn more about creating a Flipped Classroom, I attended a full day workshop on Flipped Teaching and Retrieval Practice (FT‐RP) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. This instructional strategy was then integrated into my BSCI 735 cell biology class. Two weeks in advance, the 17 students (juniors and seniors) were notified that the class would be flipped and the student expectations for that class meeting were described. Cell signaling was the subject chosen because students often have difficulty understanding the different pathways of steroid and peptide hormones. In advance of the class meeting, students watched a YouTube video on cell signaling and reviewed a PowerPoint outline. At the beginning of the class period, students took a multiple choice quiz on the subject and then participated in two types of cell signaling dramatizations. For the dramatization of the mechanism of action of steroid hormones, each student wore a placard with an assigned role: steroid hormone, plasma membrane, intracellular receptor, nuclear pore, and DNA. With the guidance of the instructor, students participated in the signaling cascade that began with the steroid hormone diffusing through the plasma membrane. The students switched roles and the activity was repeated. For the dramatization of the mechanism of action of peptide hormones, each student wore a placard with an assigned role: ligand, receptor, G protein, adenylate cyclase, plasma membrane, ATP, protein kinase A, intracellular enzymes and ion channels. The students performed the dramatization that concluded with cAMP binding to protein kinase A (PKA). The exercise was repeated twice with students switching roles each time. In the final dramatization, the next level of complexity of the PKA pathway was added and additional roles were assigned: the regulatory and catalytic subunits of PKA, the nuclear pore, and DNA, while enzymes and ion channels moved to the nucleus. This signaling pathway ended with genes being activated, enzymes turned on and ion channels opened. At the end of the class, students took the same quiz to assess what they learned and all scores increased. The flipped teaching was successful as students were able to differentiate the cell signaling pathways of steroid and peptide hormones. Support or Funding Information APS‐Teaching Career Enhancement Award This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .