Looking
to add some variety to your teaching routine?
Maybe it’s time to think about turning your classroom upside down! Not literally, of course, just in the way
content is presented to your students.
Flipping the classroom, a hot topic in pedagogy thanks to several high
profile articles, takes the standard instructional model and turns it on its
head.
To tease
out what exactly flipping the classroom is, this blog post will address 3 main
questions: 1) What is flipping the
classroom? 2) Does it work? 3) How can I begin to flip my classroom?
1) What is flipping the classroom?
First,
as I’ve already hinted that flipping the classroom is a complete inversion of
traditional teaching, it is important to think about what has been the status
quo in many classrooms. This standard method of instruction involves students
doing assigned reading before coming to class, listening to a lecture during
class time and then going through problem sets or producing another form of
assignment for homework. Flipping the
classroom encompasses a change where what students would normally do in the
classroom is now what is done at home, while the homework will be done in
class.
To
elaborate, students would watch a video of a lecture or voiced over PowerPoint
before coming to class. To ensure that
students complete the preparatory work some incentive should be in place
whether it involves a quick on-line quiz before coming to class or having to
turn in some form of written work. The
real value of this flipping technique comes from what happens next. Rather than students passively learning
through their teacher lecturing during class, they will be actively engaged
with hands-on projects, lab experiments or problem sets that would normally
constitute their homework. The presence
of the teacher during this process allows for immediate feedback, mini-lectures
when necessary, and question and answer time for anything students found unclear
in the video lectures.
As
you can see, the theory behind flipping the classroom is that in-class time
will become much more active which will result in better learning outcomes for
our students, a topic covered earlier in the semester by another of our
fellows, Ashley. For those of you
familiar with Bloom’s taxonomy, it might also be clear that the lower levels of
Bloom’s are accomplished outside of the classroom while higher order thinking
skills are developed and nurtured inside the classroom.
This
leads us to our second question. Does it work?
In
short, most evidence would point to yes! One test of flipping the classroom,
performed by Carl Weiman and colleagues in a large enrollment undergraduate
physics class, examined the benefits of flipping the classroom by assessing student
performance after a unit was taught in a flipped classroom style1. For their experiment, they chose two large
introductory Physics lectures that had approximately 270 students each. The courses were taught with an identical
approach (i.e. our standard lecture model) for the first 11 weeks of the
semester. During week 12, however, one classroom was flipped while the other
retained the standard lecture model of instruction. In the experimental classroom, students were assigned
readings on which they took a short true/false quiz before coming to class. During class time, students were answering
clicker questions with peer instruction and working in small groups.
Having
baseline data on student attendance, engagement and academic performance during
the first 11 weeks of the semester provided evidence that the student
populations in both classes were roughly equal in all categories assessed. After the flipped classroom test, however, measurements
of attendance and engagement dramatically increased for students in the
experimental course while student attendance and engagement remained steady in
the standard lecture. As a final measure of learning outcomes, the instructors
gave an identical multiple choice exam to students from both courses. The scores showed that students in the
experimental section did twice as well as their counterparts in the standard
lecture course.
There
is evidence that flipping the classroom works in K-12 education levels as
well. Take for example, Clintondale High
School, just north of Detroit2. Andy Scheel, a social studies
teacher, was the first to attempt flipping the classroom at Clintondale. He ran two parallel
classes that covered the same content and used the same assessments for student
performance. One was traditional and one
was flipped. The only notable difference between students in the sections was
that students in the flipped classroom had a history of struggling with the
material as several had failed the course at least once. At the end of the semester, no student in the
flipped classroom received a grade less than a C+; a marked improvement from
previous semesters.
After
this initial experiment, every class in the school is being transitioned to be
taught in this flipped manner. The
success of their students is evident in the numbers now passing standardized
state wide exams.
Now
that we have looked at some evidence that flipping the classroom is beneficial
for student performance, what are some
tips for flipping your own classroom?
As
with any pedagogical change, starting
small can be a good thing! Try out
flipping a specific class that covers a concept that you know is challenging
for students or that you have a great activity planned for that would be rushed
when planned for the same class as a longer lecture. Also start small with the
media that you supply your students for the at home lecture viewing. Many people use instructional lecture-based videos
as the new prep work for class, but this does not mean that you need to find a
way to film yourself giving a lecture.
Thanks to ample online resources from the Kahn Academy, YouTube, TED,
and recorded university lectures including Open Yale Courses; you can likely
find a previously taped lecture that will serve your purposes. The main criteria when choosing media should
be that the content covered in them provides the background your students will
need to meet the learning goals set for
the next class.
When
contemplating flipping your classroom, even if only for one session, it is
important to make sure to communicate with your students about what is
happening. For many students, this will
be a new experience and understanding what to expect and the benefits that
flipping the classroom has for them is incredibly important. After explaining the new process to students,
hold them accountable for completing tasks assigned to be finished before class! The shape this takes is up to you but one
common form is a quick quiz.
After
all the prep work to make the flipped classroom a reality, the actual
instructional time is your moment to enjoy the fruits of all your hard
work! Use a variety of active learning
strategies from the use of clickers to group problem solving exercises. If looking for more information on active
learning ideas for your classroom, make sure to check out other resources from
the YTC-active learning is something we are all proponents of here!
I
hope you found this blog post on the flipped classroom useful. As flipping the classroom is a broad topic,
of which only the surface has been skimmed in this post, check out the links
below for more information. In particular,
UT at Austin’s Center for Teaching and Learning has an excellent page on how to
flip your classroom with some video interviews of faculty from a variety of
disciplines that have taken the plunge and flipped entire courses.
1 DesLauriers L, Schelew E, and Wieman C (2011). Improved learning in a large-enrollment physics class. Science 332: 862-864.
Helpful
Links:
NY
Times Opinion Piece on Flipping the Classroom: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/turning-education-upside-down/
Vanderbilt Center
for Teaching page on Flipping the Classroom:
UT at Austin Center for
Teaching and Learning on Flipping the Classroom: http://ctl.utexas.edu/ctl/sites/default/files/7%20Things%20You%20Should%20Know%20about%20the%20Flipped%20Classrooms%20EDUCAUSE%20%C2%A92012.pdf
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