Figure 5. Student response to the active-learning approach. (A) Surveyed graduate students were asked to respond to the two questions listed here. We received nine responses from 13 bioinformatics graduate students in total. As indicated, all student responses were uniformly positive in regard to the group-learning strategy. (B) Students were asked to assess specific aspects of the cooperative-learning and lecture-based strategies presented in Bioinformatics 526 using a numeric scale (5 = strongly agree and 1 = strongly disagree). The mean response is indicated. Students also used this numeric scale in response to the statements “I preferred the lecture classes” and “I preferred the active-learning approach”; mean responses to these statements are indicated as “student preference.” (C) In corollary to the mean numeric scores, a summary of individual student responses to the three questions/statements presented in Figure 5B is indicated. No single student in the class preferred a lecture format to the active-learning sessions.