Flipping Without Flopping in Advanced Cell Biology

Case studies and flipped classrooms are often associated with attempts to increase student engagement in general education or freshman level coursework. For the last two years, we have flipped our junior/senior level Cell Biology lecture courses, spending nearly all of the in‐class time with activities directed at analyzing and applying data in this field, or assessing student learning. For the summer 2014 term, we co‐taught a 5‐week “blended” online and onsite version of the course, and carefully evaluated academic achievement compared with a standard semester‐long course taught in the spring term. While both formats included the flipped classroom, the shorter time spent with students in the summer necessitated changes to the classroom activity schedule. Interestingly, students achieved equal scores on fact‐based questions in both terms. There was also no difference in student achievement on directed questions about experimental data, or quantitative analysis questions. However, the blended format was not amenable to developing student analyses of primary data from cell biology journal articles; a process that we have measured to develop slowly over the course of a semester during a standard course. Student opinions about the non‐lecture formats varied widely, as did opinions about the condensed, blended format. Depending on the learning goals of the instructor, a blended, flipped course may be able to achieve good student learning outcomes at the advanced undergraduate level; however, some important scientific educational goals related to higher levels of thinking are much more difficult to achieve with less time spent together in the classroom learning community.