Abstract:

Recently coronavirus pandemic has forced teachers and students to adapt and/or use online learning in a very short period of time. The discovery of new possibilities and expectations of digital technologies in combination with traditional learning is creating new educational approaches, such as flipped classroom. The flipped classroom is a student-centered learning with two separated phases:
(i) first an online, autonomous phase where the students carry out self-regulated learning activities (video, internet, questionnaires, reading) and
(ii) a second collaborative phase in class to solve doubts, clarify concepts, and other collaborative active learning activities.

We tested the efficacy of this methodology in higher education students who never had experienced this learning methodology. To this end, we proposed to students of the discipline Plant Biotechnology (4º year) of the Degree of Biotechnology of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) to work on some contents of the program of Plant Biotechnology using this methodology. For the first phase, the professor provided 2 videos about Plant Microbiome and also encouraged students to consult autonomously related aspects on the internet. The second phase carried out in the classroom served as a review session and allowed students to solve doubts, make comments, and examine new applications of this new knowledge to practical cases.

We evaluated the effectiveness of flipped classroom approach evaluating the prior knowledge of students about Plant Microbiome and compared the score after the flipped classroom. We also compared students´ learning performance of flipped classroom with the traditional lectures in class. Student exam scores improved significantly with the flipped class as compared with a traditional class. The students felt more motivated and increased their participation in the second collaborative phase. Limitations and advantages of this methodology in higher education were discussed.

Keywords:

Flipped classroom, higher education, Biotechnology, University, active learning, collaborative learning.