Engaging Large and Diverse Cohorts of Bioscience Students in Lectures using Kinaesthetic Active Learning

Abstract

The popularity of flipped teaching, where interactive class-time is combined with online material, is increasing in biomedical education. The challenge for lecturers, particularly with the massification of higher education, is to deliver interaction which is highly motivational and engaging. The aim of this case study was to measure the satisfaction of large and diverse bioscience cohorts with lecturing which used kinaesthetic participation in musculoskeletal lectures. The participation included using the bodies of the lecturer and the students, en masse synchronous demonstrations, kinaesthetic mnemonics, student games and anatomical models. Demographic data showed that a high percentage of the students were disadvantaged (e.g., poor-performing, non-English home language, first in family to attend university, low socio-economic status). Students keenly engaged in the activities. The percentages of students who agreed or strongly agreed that communication was effective, that the environment was easy to learn from and that they were satisfied with the teaching were 97.9%, 98.4% and 99.2%, respectively (n=384). Of the 67.2% of students who volunteered comments, 98.1% gave positive responses, with 45.1% of these specifically mentioning the word ‘interactive’ or its synonyms. These findings offer an example of interactive lecturing that could be used in a flipped classroom, particularly for large and diverse cohorts.