WHY I TEACH: Teachers have two choices when standing before a class, they can teach in a way that the students are passive participants in the lecture or in a way that every student in the classroom becomes an active participant in the lecture such that at the end of the lecture, the students have a profound understanding of the principles that are being taught. My goal is to teach in order to promote active learning in the classroom to inspire students to be active participants of each lecture, motivate the students to see beyond the classroom, to see each lecture in view of the problems that ail society, and instill in the students their profound role of translating knowledge into discoveries that will alleviate human suffering.
WHAT I TEACH: I teach basic principle courses (biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, nucleic acids technology, amino acids technology, systems biology) and application type courses to apply these principles (applications in biotechnology, special topics, translational research, and effective teaching techniques) in order to: transition the student from being a consumer of knowledge to a developer of products, develop the student in his/her ability to identify problems, propose testable solutions to these problems, and develop these solutions in the form of technologies, and assist the student in his/her understanding of how these technologies can be transitioned from the bench to the bedside to alleviate human suffering.
HOW I TEACH: I teach using the Flipped Classroom Model. This consists of 4 phases: Phase I-A voice over of the powerpoint lecture before class of basic principles and application of these principles in the life science industry, Phase II-Pretest at the beginning of the class period which consists of 5 all-encompassing clinical application questions followed by a 20 minute period to review the answers to the questions, Phase III-Problem based application where the students are divided into preassigned teams and work on evaluating a clinical case designed to evoke analysis, discussion and critical thinking of the given problem, and Phase IV-Teaching where the students on each team articulate their solution to the problem to the entire class .
HOW I MEASURE TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS: The background of each student is measured by a pretest, the level of comprehension of each lecture materials is measured by pretests and clinical applications that are given for each lecture, the student’s understanding of course material is measured by the three course exams given, and the student’s profound understanding of the course content is assessed by a posttest.
