Making an Effective Flipped Neuroscience Lab by Approaching Students from Their Emoticons

During the pandemic, we filmed our neuroscience labs, and now the videos provide a great resource to flip the lab. Our lab, however, covers a wide range of complicated topics, ranging from gross anatomy, immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining, and fluorescence imaging to cockroach microscopic surgery and measuring nerve conduction velocity on worms and human subjects, and it is challenging to get students to finish watching these complicated experiments. The biggest challenge that students face while watching these experiment demonstrations is their own emotions. When we were editing the films of the labs, we did not reduce the complexity, but we explained concepts by using concepts and objects that students are already familiar with so we do not trigger anxiety. To reduce boredom, we employed three major methods: questioning, humor, and increasing the pace. To address potential anxiety or reluctance about the in-person part of the lab, we mention at the beginning of every lab session that making mistakes is completely acceptable and, as they make mistakes, we help them understand what went wrong and how to correct it. We also introduce additional activities in some lab sessions to pique their interest. For instance, we ask students to test the effects of Red Bull on crickets and investigate whether students who play more video games have higher conduction velocities in the median nerve. Thus far, our flipped lab has been quite successful in terms of maintaining video retention rates and in-person attendance rates. A notable example of the effectiveness of improved hands-on skills is the cockroach microscopic surgery. Before implementing the flipped lab, only 10% of students were able to successfully complete the surgery and acquire nerve activity recordings. With the flipped lab, 90% of students were able to obtain a recording independently.