Delaware State University’s (DSU) biology department was awarded a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant was used to implement a flipped classroom environment for two freshman science classes, cell biology and genetics. Echo360 was selected as the active learning and lecture capture technology that will support the flipped learning model.

The decision to “flip the classroom” was the idea of members of DSU’s science department, who felt that the traditional lecture just was not working. According to Associate Professor Dr. Andrew Lloyd, speaking in an article written in the Dover Post, “We know that students don’t really pick up anything if you just stand and talk and show pictures. It just goes right past them. There is very little information retention at this point.”

Lloyd’s opinion of the traditional lecture is supported by research emerging around the topic of active learning in STEM education. In an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there is extensive evidence that active learning improves student outcomes. The research suggests that students in traditional lecture classes are 1.5 times MORE LIKELY to fail than students in classes with active learning components. Furthermore, students earn one-third higher grade levels (B+ instead of B, etc.) when active learning methods are used.

These gains will not come without work. Dr. Lloyd and his colleagues have employed a team of people to redesign the current courses into short, 10-15 minute video segments. Students are assigned to view several segments before class and then apply what they have learned during classroom time. A similar approach was used by Dr. Russell Mumper at the University of North Carolina. The results definitely paid off. Test scores in Mumper’s class improved by 5.1% over a three year period.

Dr. Lloyd says, “I want to see much wider adoption for this technique for learning throughout all the sciences.”

We couldn’t agree more.

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