Flip it or not for histology teaching in dental school?

Over the years, many novel electronic teaching tools and approaches have complemented and supplanted traditional educational offerings in histology such as lectures. The teaching method frequently used in our dental school histology class is the “flipped classroom” model. Prior to formal classroom sessions, students preview course materials from videos and the syllabus. During formal classroom sessions, students apply the knowledge that they acquired before classes by answering quiz questions using the interactive electronic tool, Poll Everywhere. The instructors will see the live responses from students and review important concepts in histology. The flipped classroom has changed the traditional teacher‐centered lecture‐based teaching method and is designed to encourage self‐motivated learning. However, the attendance of the flipped classroom is very low, even though the interactive class is not recorded. To find a better strategy for teaching histology in dental school, we compared the effectiveness of “flipped classroom” with a non‐flipped interactive learning class. In the non‐flipped classroom, dental students are not required to watch videos before class. Instead, the instructor provides a brief introduction of day’s topic in class, then students will practice their understanding of freshly learned knowledge by discussing and answering quiz questions using the same interactive tool, Poll Everywhere. Since, in this model, the interactive classes are recorded, students may choose to forgo attending the scheduled interactive classes. In this study, we used the flipped class model for D22 students and the non‐flipped interactive approach for D23 students. The lecture content, quiz questions, instructor and exam questions were identical for the two classes. We compared the normalized exam performances of students who attended class in the two models. The research results showed that dental students who were exposed to the non‐flipped interactive class have significantly higher attendance and better normalized exam performance than those who received the flipped class. In the flipped classroom model, dental students exhibit a strong tendency to use the pre‐class videos and syllabus only, which is basically a traditional lecture‐based teaching method without scheduled time restrictions. In contrast, the non‐flipped interactive class model encourages students to attend the classes, even if they missed reviewing pre‐class materials (for example, syllabus). Once the students come to the classroom, they will benefit from the interactive learning that follows the instructor’s outline of the topic. This study will provide insights for choosing histology teaching strategies for dental students. Support or Funding Information Department of Medical Education, Tufts University, School of Medicine; Dental Research Administration, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine