A hybrid flipped‐classroom approach for online teaching of biochemistry in developing countries during Covid‐19 crisis

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic, with millions of cases, has caused a huge socio-economic impact and impaired routine classroom teaching across the globe.1 While the situation is still not out of danger, online solutions for teaching are rapidly emerging and being constantly improved by educators, institutions and educational associations like ASBMB.2 As educators for over a decade, we have observed a reluctant behavior of students toward the online learning platforms in developing economies particularly due to poor internet connectivity, inferior technical know-how of the online tools, and hindered two-way communication between student and teacher. A recent surge in the user-friendly platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Team and other options has shattered this reluctance and rapid turnout of students has been observed. With over a class of 200 students, we have been developing newer strategies and experimented with various formats of online platforms. Among the common modes that we used were, mode 1: conventional audio-delivery with PowerPoint slides on live platforms, mode 2: video and audio with animated graphics on live platforms, mode 3: recorded videos with audio and video support, and mode 4: Audio-visual one-to-one discussion and problem solving with conceptual understating. Provided the relatively inferior internet connectivity in remote parts of the developing countries, audio alone with animated PowerPoint slides (mode 1) gathered a better response with no absolute requirement of instructor video. However, the delivery was monotonous for most of the students who had access to better internet connectivity. In the second mode where both video and audio were delivered, the student connectivity with the instructor was better and the session was interactive, especially while answering questions of students where instructor's gestures had an impact. In mode 3, which was a prior recorded video, the learners appreciated the least disturbance and flexibility of learning but reacted negatively on the grounds of instructor-learner interaction. After observing the comments and feedback of learners, we practiced a hybrid approach that was a blend of above four modes, along with a popular and rapidly emerging flipped classroom strategy,3 where students were provided with slides, questionnaire and supporting open-source links prior to the delivery of video lecture at least 24 h in advance. The student's queries were also made available to the tutor before the lecture stated. On the start of a routine online class, we started with format 1, and on completion of the concept, we switched to mode 3, with a final one-way resolution of previous day queries, followed by a two-way communication for clearing doubts for the current session. Our approach was tested for a topic carbohydrate metabolism with a 40-minute trial class on three different platforms, Zoom,4 WizIQ5 and Google Meet.6 Although the platform did not have a much impact on the learning outcome as most of the impact was based on content and delivery, ease of access and preference to the specific tool could not be justified. Furthermore, internet connectivity is an issue with some regions of the developing economies which was observed as a major hurdle in the mode 1 and mode 4, pre-recorded videos with enough buffer time received a good feedback from the users. Additionally, during our proposed hybrid approach for users with poor internet last phase of interactive session was provided in recorded from for later use and text based resolution of queries was performed. In summary, we would comment that the stated approach could be highly beneficial and could be extrapolated to subjects beyond biochemistry, that shall benefit a larger learner-instructor community in the times of pandemic crisis. Authors dec-lare no conflict of interest and do not endorse any online software or tool in this article and did not compare any merits of online teaching tools.