It’s Flipping Amazing!Using screencasting to partially flip a freshman biology course

Melanie Styers, Dept. of Biology, BSC

What is the course? BI 125: Cell and Molecular Biology Covers topics ranging from molecular structure

(proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids) to the central dogma of molecular biology to cellular organelles and metabolism.

What is the course?

No pre-requisites, required for the biology major and for all pre-health students.

Tagged SM (Scientific Methodologies)

What are the challenges? Course enrolls approximately 50

students. Students in the fall range from first-

semester freshmen to junior and senior chemistry majors picking up an additional course for pre-health or other programs.

A great deal of content has to be covered in the course, as it is a prerequisite for many upper level biology courses.

What do I see as the biggest issues for students in the course?

Less prepared students struggle with the pace of the course.

Students have a tendency to be “passive learners” in the course without substantial prodding.

It is difficult to get students to prepare for class. Students have a hard time visualizing processes

at the molecular level. Some students haven’t yet learned how to approach studying at the college level.

What was my approach to improving student learning in BI 125?

Use Camtasia to prepare videos that take the place of ~10 minutes of introductory material for each chapter. Videos were posted on my YouTube channel for easy access.

https://www.youtube.com/user/BSCCell

What was my approach to improving student learning in BI 125?

Hold students responsible for watching the videos and doing the reading via clicker questions.

What was my approach to improving student learning in BI 125?

Increase time for in-class activities and problem solving. Model kits Group problem

solving

What was my approach to improving student learning in BI 125?

Lectures use a variety of instructional methods, including PowerPoint, writing on the board, and videos.

All lecture materials are posted on Moodle. Give weekly in-class quizzes to force students

to study “as we go.”

What difficulties did I experience?

Finding time to prep all of those videos ahead of time.

Figuring out how to pace in-class activities. Even when held responsible, not every

student will prepare for class. Figuring out the technology—Camtasia and

Turning Technologies reporting functions. How do I deal with excused absences

(sports, etc.)?

What did the students say? “I like how you did videos. That helped

me study for the quizzes because I could always re-watch them.”

“With the videos it has really prepared me for class the following day.”

“The class activities and the videos helped A LOT.”

“The videos before each chapter were helpful in preparing.”

“Videos and class activities made the course interesting.”