We describe Presentation Enhanced Learning (PEL), a flexible, lecture-free, field-tested teaching format to promote problem-based, active learning in upper-division or graduate biological sciences courses. PEL may be implemented as a single, capstone event or as the organizing principle for an entire course. In a PEL module, the lectures are replaced by student-led presentations created by their own backward design process and mapped to Bloom’s taxonomy. Each presentation includes explicit asses…