Jason Organ, School of Medicine
Principal Investigator: Jason Organ, assistant professor, School of Medicine
Co-Principal Investigators: Andrew Deane, associate professor, School of Medicine
Project Title: Flipped Classrooms in Graduate Anatomical Sciences Courses
Funding Level: $4,670
Abstract:
Courses in the anatomical sciences are typically taught through a combination of passive didactic lectures and active laboratory learning experiences. Over the last several years, the value of didactic lectures in anatomy and histology courses has been called into question, as a broad push to bring more active learning experiences into the classroom ensues. In this proposal we describe how we will flip the classroom in two graduate level anatomy courses: human gross anatomy (ANAT-D 501) and basic histology (ANAT-D 502). To do this, we will remove all didactic lectures from these courses and replace them with short video tutorials and active-learning workbooks to be completed while students watch the tutorials on their own. Class time that used to serve as lecture time will then be used to engage students in active learning exercises like team-based learning case study and/or multiple-choice problem solving in the style of the National Board of Medical Examiners. Our efforts to flip the classroom will bring the acquisition of knowledge outside of the classroom and help build self-directed learning skills, while also bringing active learning into the classroom which will help embed that knowledge for longer term retention and recall. Finally, we will formally assess whether a flipped classroom approach allows traditionally poorer performing students to more successfully answer questions that assess higher order cognition, confirming results described in the literature for other anatomical sciences courses that use a flipped classroom approach.
