Effective review of prerequsites: Using videos to flip the reviewing process in a senior technical course

Senior level courses in engineering curriculum typically require multiple prerequisites from the years earlier. This paper discusses how we solve the challenge in teaching a biomechanics course offered to senior Mechanical Engineering students. The course is designed to teach students how to apply mechanical engineering knowledge in the biomedical field. It covers a wide range of topics and is built on five prerequisite courses. Students take these courses from sophomore through senior years but not necessarily following the same technical sequence. Given this situation, it is critical to make sure students have mastered the foundational knowledge and skills before transferring them to the biomedical context. Traditionally, in each unit of the course the instructor would need about two to three weeks just to review the relevant prerequisite knowledge. This means there is less time left to discuss class examples or advanced topics in bioengineering. To make the review process more efficient, in fall 2016, the instructor adopted a "flipped review" approach by replacing classroom review with a series of review video and quiz combos outside of class. Each combo consisted of one video focused on one technical area followed by an online quiz. They were assigned to students across the semester to support unit-specific topics where the technical knowledge would be needed. All video and quiz combos were due before the class meeting time. Based on positive student feedback, the review series was revised when the course was offered again in spring 2018. This paper will discuss the effectiveness of "flipped review" by using review videos to reactivate student prior knowledge. Student feedback used in this paper came primarily from spring 2018. The must-have features suggested by students, and instructor reflection on how to make the review videos effective, will also be shared.