Math Bio or Biomath? Flipping the mathematical biology classroom

Abstract

Mathematical and computational methods are vital to many areas of contemporary biological research, such as genomics, molecular modeling, structural biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, neurobiology, and systems biology. As such, the contemporary life science student needs to be exposed to, if not well-versed in, many areas of mathematics to keep pace. However, traditional ways of teaching mathematics may not be able to provide life science majors the skills and experiences necessary to effectively use mathematics in their careers as practitioners and/or researchers, as these skills and experiences (for example, mathematical modeling and interdisciplinary collaboration) are difficult to teach using lecture-style approaches. In this paper the authors describe the implementation and assessment of a flipped-classroom approach to teaching a sophomore-level mathematical biology course for life science majors.