Chapter 8
Biochemistry and the Liberal Arts: Content
and content of videos for teaching are as wide and varied as the methods for making them (8). Background, special topics, guest lectures, problem solutions and responses to questions all have been the subjects of videos to enhance student learning and create time in-class for high-impact, active learning strategies.
With class time liberated for active learning strategies, faculty are employing a vast array of proven techniques in the classroom (9, 10). Personal response systems (clickers), paper and pencil problems, skits, student presentations, workshops, demonstrations and a class-lab hybrid all are more accessible with the lecture portion being moved outside of the class.
But beyond content, the flipped classroom provides students an opportunity to improve interpersonal skills (11,12). The current generation of college students has been raised in a device-centric (phone, iPad etc.) social structure while many of the older generations and even current students from less privileged backgrounds have not had this opportunity. This disparity can create a challenge for quality and effective interpersonal communication. To this end, students need coaching and practice in the art of both speaking and listening. Even for those who are proficient, there is always room to refine communication skills in a technical area.
In this chapter the journey of creating and implementing a flipped classroom using video lectures for a one-semester 300-level biochemistry course will be presented. Comparisons of exams and exam scores are made between the same course taught in traditional lecture format and in the flipped format. Additional self-reported student data are given to support the claim that they are gaining skills valued by the liberal arts community.
Methodology
The process for creating a video lecture supplement for viewing outside of class can begin with PowerPoint slides and lecture notes that already exist for a given course. There is no requirement to rewrite lectures or modify slides that have proven effective for student learning and previous experiences. In conversations with faculty who are interested in trying to create video lectures they often become overwhelmed with the number of choices in software available to capture video voice and screen simultaneously. While there are dozens to choose from they all do about the same thing. In this respect the choices therefore become very personal. This author recommends several features that have proven effective for the past several years. First is convenience. It is very convenient to be able to record, edit and publish a lecture video in the privacy and comfort of your own office. Some may argue for the need for a professional quality recording studio and yes, that will give the highest quality production product in the end but there is a trade-off for the convenience of simply being able to close your door record a lecture and publish it to the web. To this end this author has used Telescreen’s ScreenFlow software for all of his video lecture production (13). ScreenFlow allows the simultaneous capture of voice, a headshot (optional) and the events that are happening on the screen whether it is an animation or simply the mouse pointer being used to illustrate different features on the slide (Figure 1).
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Figure 1. Representative screen shot of a typical video lecture containing the PowerPoint slide, talking head of the professor and the mouse pointer to
highlight text.
The second feature that is critical in screen capture software is the ability to conveniently edit the file. Editing the file can be extremely complex and time- consuming, relatively straightforward, or not employed at all. We know that in our classrooms not every lecture is perfect. Often times we pause, we may stumble on words, shuffle our notes or even lose our train of thought. The students are accepting of these small idiosyncrasies therefore we should feel no different when producing a video lecture. A slight pause to check where you are in your notes, a moment to collect your thoughts or an invitation for students to pause the video to work a problem does not distract from the content of the video lecture itself.
This “good enough” philosophy can lower a barrier and facilitate creation of a valuable teaching tool. If one does desire to edit out large gaffes or create a video masterpiece, the software should be easy and convenient to use. With ScreenFlow, large and/or small sections of audio and video can be cut and spliced back together to create a relatively seamless flow of information from start to finish. It is also possible to add voice overs or additional material later on if desired. Finally, all software packages must have the ability to export the file from an editable screen capture file or similar to a .MOV, .mp4 or .m4v file (or similar) that can be viewed on nearly any device whether it is phone, tablet PC or Mac. Note that the editable files created in ScreenFlow are rather large and potentially cumbersome, so having an external hard drive is a nice way to store them safely without having to burden a device with these large files. A sixteen-minute video as an editable Screenflow file is 8.3GB. Once converted to .MOV or .m4v the final file is only 170MB. Once exported, storing the files on Google Drive or on an internal server allows for easy access via links on course websites or your institution’s learning management system (LMS).
To complement the online lectures, students can be given access to all the PowerPoint slides used in the lectures. They can choose between viewing them electronically, downloading and printing them themselves, or purchasing the printed version from the bookstore/campus copy center in a bound volume.
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Anecdotal evidence suggests that students listen more actively (as if they were in class) and are more successful when they have the printed slides in front of them while watching the video lectures.
The in-class portion of the course can be based on a variety of proven high- impact practice strategies. Whether it is unique applications of the basic concepts presented in literature-centered case studies, POGIL activities or simply working problems from the back of the chapter in groups, the idea is to engage students in activities that reinforce key concepts and allow them to practice problem solving in an atmosphere of “social constructivism (14–16).” The activities should follow the central dogma of the high impact classroom where activities are effortful, build relationships, allow the instructor to provide immediate feedback/coaching and apply/reinforce the knowledge gained from outside of class efforts (17). Small groups of 3 to 4 established at random and shuffled after each exam has been the methodology to date based on previous reports (18).
This author uses a 50-50 split between end of chapter or exam-style questions to engage students with the material and case study assignments either self-authored or published (19–21). Regardless of the activity the students are given the material ahead of time and encouraged to work through the material on their own before class, bringing to class questions that might have come up during the process of working on the problems or cases. The ideal scenario is for a student to truly engage in the material outside of class and bring specific roadblock questions to class to discuss with classmates and the instructor. This scenario rarely plays out, yet class-time can be fruitful without much pre-class preparation. Usually students spend more time in-class focusing on background information and orienting themselves to the problems rather than delving deeply into the nuances of the biochemical concepts. The key to successful in-class activities is to make sure the students have a product to be graded to turn in at the end of class even if it is just the answer to one problem completed by the group.
This ensures that the groups remain focused on the material rather than on side conversations or current events. The “hand-in” at the end of class also provides the instructor a vehicle to provide feedback on their written work prior to an exam. Because of the structure of the flipped classroom there is no limit on the creativity of the instructor for in-class activities. Games, skits and even serious discussions about current research articles and ethical dilemmas can be brought before the class without having to worry about sacrificing precious lecture time needed to cover content.
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Results
Observations and data collected for this chapter are from a typical semester at St. Olaf College with 12 weeks of instruction covering the content for a 300 level biochemistry class targeted at junior and senior undergraduates who have completed two semesters of 200-level organic chemistry. In the 12 weeks the students were assigned 51 video lectures to be viewed outside of class to support their reading of the textbook. The lectures ranged in length from five minutes to 30 minutes with an average video length of 16 minutes. The tone of the video lectures could be described more as a one-on-on tutorial during office-hours rather than a lecture-hall style presentation. During a given week the average time students were assigned to spend outside of class listening to lectures was a little over 60 minutes provided they did a single viewing. By flipping the classroom all students were guaranteed at least 165 minutes per week of active, guided engagement in material related to problem solving and critical thinking.
With an average class size of 32, dividing the students into eight groups of 4 allowed for personal interactions with each group during the scheduled meeting time and a manageable grading load for the in-class assignments.
In the seven semesters prior to flipping the classroom, 34 exams were administered to 325 students. The typical exam format consisted of 7-8 short answer questions where the students had to complete a calculation, draw a figure, interpret data or write a response in their own words within the 1-hour time limit. The median score on these exams was 82%. In the six semesters following flipping the classroom 24 exams were administered to 196 students. Exam format and time restriction was comparable to those administered before flipping the classroom. The median score on these exams was 79%. A two-tail distribution analysis gave a P level of 0.009 that suggests that there was no difference in the median score between the two data sets.
While there was no significant difference between the median scores before and after flipping the classroom, a detailed analysis of the exams themselves showed a difference in the difficulty of the exams. Each question on each exam was evaluated and ranked according to Bloom’s taxonomy (22). Table 1 below shows the criteria for ranking each test question and Table 2 shows the average percentage of exam points assigned at each level before-and-after flipping the class.
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Table 1. Exam question levels and corresponding Bloom’s taxonomy
Level Type Rationale Key Words
1 Knowledge Requires the student to recognize or recall information
list, label, define, describe 2 Comprehension When students can reproduce and
communicate ideas and information without verbatim repetition
arrange, identify, explain, sort, classify 3 Application The ability to use this information in
particular, concrete, situations
choose, solve, draw demonstrate, prepare
4 Analysis Breaking down ideas into constituent parts in order to make the organization clear
analyze, contrast, examine, test, compare 5 Synthesis The ability to integrate ideas into a
unified whole
create, design, propose, modify 6 Evaluation The ability to judge the value of an
idea, model, procedure etc. using appropriate criteria
judge, predict, defend, support, assess
Table 2. Aggregate percentages of exam points at each level before and after flipping the classroom.
Level Before After
1-2 49% 26%
3-4 42% 51%
5-6 9% 23%
Each semester following flipping the classroom, students were given an assessment worksheet and asked to respond to a series of prompts on a five point Likert scale where the highest response was “strongly agree” and the lowest response was “strongly disagree”. Questions could be divided into two categories one having to do with the structure of the class (Table 3) and one having to do with personal growth during class (Table 4).
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Table 3. End of course survey questions used to measure student opinion of the structure of the course
Structure I feel the book was valuable to learning biochemistry
I feel working problems in groups during class time was valuable to learning biochemistry
I feel the On Line Lectures (OLL) were a suitable replacement for in-class lectures I feel the instructor created a supportive, encouraging environment for learning
Student responses over five semesters are summarized in aggregate form in figure 2.
Figure 2. Results summarized from Table 3 questions. The solid point is the average percentage of students who responded, “agree” or “strongly agree” to the corresponding question. The vertical bar spans the range of responses over
five semesters.
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Table 4. End of course survey questions used to measure student opinion of personal gains during the course
Growth I feel I improved my ability to think beyond the basics I feel I improved my ability to work with others I feel I improved my ability to solve problems
I feel I improved in my ability to be a more independent learner
Student responses over five semesters are summarized in aggregate form in figure 3.
Figure 3. Results summarized from Table 4 questions. The solid point is the average percentage of students who responded, “agree” or “strongly agree” to the corresponding question. The vertical bar spans the range of responses over
five semesters.