White André O, Javier Lauren K, Goldberg Natalie R, Boucquey Veronique, Overman Julia, Ochaba Joseph, Marsh Samuel, Huffman Derek, Nicholas Andrea
Department of Biological Sciences, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075.
Ayala School of Biological Sciences, Department of Neurobiology & Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697.
J Undergrad Neurosci Educ. 2017 Nov 15;16(1):A95-A101. eCollection 2017 Fall.
Flipped instruction using online enrichment is a popular way to enhance active learning in the laboratory setting. Graduate student teaching assistants at University of California, Irvine flipped an upper division undergraduate neurobiology and behavior lab using the new online software platform "" The following research study compares the impact of pre-lab online instruction (front flipping) and post-lab online instruction (back flipping) on student exam performance. We describe a novel method for unbiased categorization of exam questions by degree of difficulty. Multi-choice instruction encourages students to consider all distractors and discourages verbal cues and process of elimination techniques. Eighteen identical questions were evenly distributed across exam versions with multiple choice instruction (single answer) or a more challenging multi-choice instruction (more than one answer). Student performance on multiple choice questions were used to categorize the degree of difficulty of questions that were presented in multi-choice format. Our findings reveal that pre-lab instruction resulted in better student performance compared with post-lab instruction on questions of moderate difficulty. This effect was significant for both male and female students. Student survey data on the flipped lab format is provided, indicating that students appreciated the online instructional modules, finding them both informative and useful during lab exercises and exams.
利用在线资源的翻转式教学是在实验室环境中增强主动学习的一种流行方式。加利福尼亚大学欧文分校的研究生助教利用新的在线软件平台对一门高年级本科神经生物学与行为学实验课程进行了翻转。以下研究比较了课前在线教学（前翻转）和课后在线教学（后翻转）对学生考试成绩的影响。我们描述了一种根据难度对考试问题进行无偏分类的新方法。多项选择题的形式鼓励学生考虑所有干扰项，并抑制言语暗示和排除法技巧。18道相同的问题被均匀分布在不同的考试版本中，有的采用多项选择题形式（单项答案），有的采用更具挑战性的多项选择题形式（多项答案）。学生在多项选择题上的表现被用于对以多项选择题形式呈现的问题的难度程度进行分类。我们的研究结果显示，在中等难度的问题上，课前教学比课后教学能让学生取得更好的成绩。这种效果在男女生中都很显著。文中还提供了关于翻转实验室形式的学生调查数据，表明学生欣赏在线教学模块，认为它们在实验练习和考试期间既信息丰富又有用。
