What to Consider When Considering Flipping Your Classroom

Susie Kimport

 

Last semester, Fall 2014, I taught calculus in a flipped classroom environment.  Before every class, my students would watch short videos introducing the topics of the day and complete a series of online “prep-problems” for each video.  A few hours before every class, I received a computer-generated summary from our web platform of how my students did on these problems.  The hope was that I could use that data to better tailor examples and in-class activities to the topics with which my students were struggling.

This is normally how a flipped classroom is designed.  The basic idea is to take introductory material out of the classroom and instead use class time for hands-on examples and more interaction between the instructor and the students.   The main difference between my experience and that of most people who talk about flipping their classrooms is that I did not create or choose the videos for my students.  I was teaching as part of a coordinated course and it was our course director who created the videos two years ago.  This meant that I entered into the semester hoping to learn more about the flipped classroom and honestly, to be convinced that it could work, without having to invest a large amount of time into implementation.

While most of the things I noticed during the semester are specific to our implementation and our videos, I think the following three points are valuable to anyone considering flipping the classroom:

1.      Think about content. A pre-class video is another way to present material, just like lecture, demonstrations, or using props in class.

a.       There is some material that lends itself wonderfully to videos.  I loved the videos that meant I did not have to attempt (and fail) to draw 3D pictures on the board.  Many students spoke highly of the videos where the main goal was to derive a formula.

b.      But for the more conceptual ideas?  Videos did not cut it.  Yes, students could pause and rewind, but the explanation never changed.  This meant that some students came to class already extremely frustrated that “the videos didn’t teach [them] anything.” You may want to consider having an alternative explanation or teaching method on hand for difficult concepts.

2.      Think about the in-class experience just as much, if not more, than the videos. Before you flip a classroom with videos, you need videos.  In April, Simona Lorenzini and I will lead a workshop exactly aimed at creating this video content.  But once you have the videos, you have to use them!  The most important questions to ask yourself are:

a.       How do I gauge what my students have learned from these videos?  How can I leverage that to improve the in-class experience for all my students?

b.      How do I make my classroom as active as possible, so students stay engaged despite “learning” the material via videos?

c.       How can I make the constant transition between video and in-class and back again as seamless as possible?

3.      Just because students watched a video does not mean they have learned and internalized everything.  One selling point of the flipped classroom is that it removes some of the tedious lecture from class and therefore allows instructors to do more.  However, the students are not always as far along after watching the videos as you might hope.  Speaking from my own experience, I was often tempted to use the videos and prep-problems to justify (to myself) skipping some more basic examples. 

When I taught Calculus II without videos, I would do 3-4 simple examples in class with the students (let’s say level 1 or 2 for a scale).  If those went well, I would do a couple more complicated problems (say level 3 or 4 if they were really getting it). Last semester, one basic (level 1) example was in the video.  The prep-problems (usually) asked the students to do 2-3 level 2 or 3 examples.  Thus, it often felt natural to start class with a level 3 problem and then dive in to level 4 problems.

The problem with this: students often struggled through the prep-problems and (since they were online) sometimes got the correct answer without internalizing why.  Therefore, starting class at level 2 would have been a safer bet.  If that example goes off without issue, then slowly make your way up to levels 3 and 4.

Overall, I am happy that I tried the flipped classroom and would look forward to doing it again, though most likely with videos I picked out or created myself.  It is a different type of teaching and I think its value comes in how each person can adapt (or steal from) the concept to improve and critically reflect on their teaching, including taking those ideas back to a “traditional” classroom.

Teaching Students with Diverse Religious Backgrounds

Hi Everyone! My name is Sara Ronis and I’m a fifth-year PhD candidate in Religious Studies. Modern classrooms are global and cosmopolitan spaces, and our students represent a diversity of race, class, gender-identities, sexual orientations, and religions. Today I wanted to talk about an issue that comes up in Religious Studies, but also in the sciences, social sciences, and the humanities more broadly: the diversity of religious traditions and faiths that our students bring to the classroom.  

Talking about religious diversity is not just an issue of minimizing conflict or damage control. It’s a powerful opportunity to bring different perspectives and values in conversation with each other and improve everyone’s learning. 

Religious issues come up when we as teachers are not familiar with the needs or expectations of our students (for example, religious clothing, prohibitions, holy days, and times of fasting).  Students may ask for a test to be moved, or an assignment deferred, for a religious event.  They also may not be comfortable with activities that involve specific food items, or have certain modesty restrictions that affect dress or physical behavior.  A great resource here at Yale is the Chaplain’s office, which puts out a calendar with all religious holidays, and is happy to talk through religious issues with any student or teacher.

Religious issues also, and perhaps most prominently, come up when students may not be comfortable with our fields’ approaches to issues that touch on religion and religious values (whether that is in a course on the Hebrew bible, a course on evolutionary biology, or a course on politics or history). 

But religious issues around student expectations can for the most part be avoided with a little reflection and planning before the semester even starts.  In order to shape informed, engaged students in a classroom marked by open inquiry and mutual respect, we need to understand where our students are coming from and make sure not to come across as flippant or dismissive. While issues may come up over the course of the semester, a little prevention goes a long way.

1.  Know your audience. Are your students mostly religious or not? Do they come from a particular denominational background?  Are they a diverse group of people, or a relatively homogenous group? What does authority look like to them?  Ask colleagues in your department who have taught at your institution before about the demographics of their courses.*  
2.     Know your institution.  Are you teaching at a public college, a private college, or a divinity school or seminary? Does your institution have particular religious expectations of faculty?  Read the university websites and talk to administrators to find out. 
3.   Know yourself. Are you someone who is comfortable sharing their own religious affiliations and journeys, if you’ve had them? Can you use those experiences in ways that enhance student learning without missionizing?  Would you prefer not to talk about religion at all?
4. Know potential issues that might come up. What are some of the common conflicts that come up in your field? How prepared are you for addressing them as they come up? How would you react if a student said something offensive or inaccurate about another religion in class? Talk to mentors and colleagues in your field for ideas.  

So, if you’re teaching political science at a small private religious college, your approach to various issues in political theory might be different than if you were teaching at a large public state university. But this is not to suggest that you should ever censor yourself or your field! That is worth repeating: You do not need to censor yourself. But you do need to plan ahead to be able explain to students the stakes of the disagreements in your field, and why the scholarship has taken the shape that it has. If your work disagrees with a particular religious tradition, you need to be able to explain why your scholarly approach differs, and what it has to offer.   

Bottom line: don’t be afraid to teach religiously diverse groups. Different perspectives will make you look at your work in different ways, and articulate why the work you do is important.The rewards of having a broad range of students with their own passions getting engaged in the subjects you teach far outweigh the time it takes to prepare to teach such a diverse cohort of students.  

Feel free to share concerns, experiences and ideas in the comments section below!

*Note: According to a lawyer I spoke to, it may be illegal in some states to ask students about their religious backgrounds in a public classroom setting. So don’t do that.

Active Learning in the Science Classroom

Hello and Happy Halloween!  My name is Ashley and I am a 6^th year PhD candidate in the Genetics department. I came across a great video that takes you inside an active learning classroom at the University of Minnesota and I wanted to share it with you!

http://www.youtube.com/v/lfT_hoiuY8w?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=4dqkMYubkhLg3WJpy7ZprQ&autoplay=1&feature=share&showinfo=1&autohide=1

Still to this day most science classes are lecture-based and rely on transmission-of-information. This traditional way of teaching is not always effective in fostering critical thinking or scientific reasoning.  There has been a new push to reform science classroom dynamics to include active learning strategies and to engage students in the scientific process.  Concept laboratories, or active learning classrooms, as shown in this video are a wonderful example of how a science classroom can be transformed.

 

There is growing literature that shows active learning strategies in the science classroom reaches diverse students and achieves better results than lecture along.  Why then hasn’t there been a rapid movement at universities to revamp the science classroom?  It is possible that professors are unaware of data that demonstrate the effectiveness of active learning strategies.  It is also possible that professors are intimidated by the challenge of learning new techniques and the time it would take to implement these changes.  In any case, it is important that we, as the next generation of teachers, recognize this challenge and hit it head on.  

Reforming science education may not only benefit science majors, it may also help send nonscience majors into society knowing how to ask and answer scientific questions. By participating in a concept laboratory, all students will be capable of confronting issues that require analytical and scientific thinking.  In addition, as noted by several students in the video, this type of classroom environment facilitated teamwork and peer learning.  Instead of passively listening to a professor lecture, these students were working actively and collaboratively to solve problems and answer questions. Dr. Wright, the professor in the video, also noted that she is able to more easily interact with small groups of students and observe how the students use technology and discussion to come up with quality solutions to problems.

 

 

As an aspiring science professor, I hope to contribute to the reformation of science education and I challenge you all to do the same!

Transformational Teaching and transforming teachers

This week’s post is about transformational teaching, a broader approach to classroom instruction that was outlined in a recent review article in Educational Psychology Review. I’m Sara, a PhD Candidate in Ancient Judaism.

"Transformational Teaching" is a term created by George M. Slavich, an assistant professor in Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA, and Phil Zimbardo, a professor emeritus in Psychology at Stanford. Yes, that Phil Zimbardo.

In higher education, lecturing is still the most common form of instruction, and makes up the bulk of what goes on in the classroom. But lots of good research has shown that many students don't learn best by listening to a professor declaim information from the front of the room. 

Instead, Slavich and Zimbardo synthesize fifty years of research suggesting that many new trends in teaching - active learning, making students collaborators in the classroom, and giving learning an experiential "outside the classroom" component - are all part of a larger transformational approach to teaching. 

According to the authors, "transformational teaching involves creating dynamic relationships between teachers, students, and a shared body of knowledge to promote student learning and personal growth. From this perspective, instructors are intellectual coaches who create teams of students who collaborate with each other and with their teacher to master bodies of information. Teachers assume the traditional role of facilitating students’ acquisition of key course concepts, but do so while enhancing students’ personal development and attitudes toward learning".

Like regular teaching, transformational teaching focuses on facilitating students’ acquisition and mastery of key course concepts, and like some great teachers, it also works on enhancing students’ strategies and skills for learning and discovery. But transformational teaching might be different from what you're used to because it also promotes positive learning-related attitudes, values, and beliefs in students, such as the belief that students can learn anything and solve problems, or that obstacles are really opportunities to problem solve. It's the combination of these three educational principles that makes some teaching "transformational."

Well, that's all very nice in theory, but how does one teach transformationally? Slavich and Zimbardo identify six core methods: 

(1) establishing a shared vision for a course
This can be as simple as stating the goals for the class on the first day, focusing on backwards designed student-centric goals, or more complicated, by having the students craft a mission statement for the class together. Instructors should remind students that while, they, the teacher, are an integral part of this process, students will be called upon to set a collaborative tone, and to make sure that the goals are realized. 

(2) providing modeling and mastery experiences
Instructors both model the skills that they want students to learn (e.g. how to read an academic article critically, how to use a particular statistical model) and then give the students different opportunities to master the same skills (in small groups, out of class assignments), while inspiring students to see these problems as opportunities. 

(3) intellectually challenging and encouraging students
Instructors begin the class at a universally comprehensible level of difficulty, given the dynamics of your particular school or field,and then pose questions and assign problems that are incrementally harder, to challenge students. This challenging is done while also providing emotional and instrumental support, sensitive to students's differences and learning needs. 

(4) personalizing attention and feedback;
Using discussion section, progress reports, office hours, and Q&A periods to assess individual students' learning, and to encourage students to assess their own learning. This helps students take responsibility for their own learning, and points the teacher toward the pieces that need reinforcement, or toward new areas to explore.

(5) creating experiential lessons that transcend the boundaries of the classroom
Instructors give students assignments to be completed outside of class that draw critical connections between their lives and the subject matter. This can be as simple as asking students to interview several people of different ages about a topic to get a sense of how understandings have changed, to field trips and experiments.

And finally (6) promoting ample opportunities for preflection and reflection.
"Preflecting" on an activity or reading before actually engaging in it allows students to think about their own attitudes and knowledge of a topic, and to consider ways to approach the issue. Reflecting, which is done after the assignment or activity is over, thinks through the assumptions one had about the content or activity, and reflects on the best ways to solve a particular problem or approach an issue. These reflections can be done individually or in groups, but are not meant to get everyone to agree to a particular conclusion or worldview. 

 

So transformational teaching has input into how a course is structured, how classroom time is used, and how students' learning is assessed and pushed further. It also reimagines the teacher as the coach of a collaborative team, instead of as a performer in front of an audience.

Transformational teaching is meant for ages 2-120. But how do you think it would play out specifically in university settings? Do you have experiences succeeding or failing using some of these approaches? Have concerns about how to use it? Inspiration to share?
Talkback in the comments!