Flipped Classroom
Flipped Classroom – MTH 111, MTH 112
The course I am running is considered a flipped classroom model. Instead of lecturing during our class meeting, the class meeting will be used to have you engage in the material, as well as other support activities, which may include a mini-lecture. The traditional lecture portion will take place outside of class by watching a video, then the following meeting we engage in an activity to allow you to ask questions or test what you have viewed in the lecture portion. Then following that, the rest of the class is devoted to the activity we all know as homework.
This model has some advantages, if you, as a student, buy into this model (that means you must do your part). The advantage is getting real time support while attempting the homework. Another advantage is that, in theory, you are engaged throughout the entire process.
In a traditional lecture classroom, if you have not prepared ahead of time by doing some reading, it is not uncommon to get lost during the lecture. Now, some students have mentioned that in the traditional classroom, they get to ask questions while lecture is occurring. While that is true, meaning, this should be occurring, my experience has been that most students, especially those that need to, don’t ask questions. When I have asked why they do not ask questions, the typical response is, “I don’t even know what to ask.”
This response actually makes sense if the student has not read ahead of time. It takes some thought, to formulate a question. If a student is not practiced at asking questions, then the amount of time needed to gather your thoughts is not available in a traditional classroom setting.
The advantage of watching the lecture at home is that you get to stop watching when you loose focus. You have the time to formulate questions, that you can then bring to class, or you can post questions in D2L. Instead of relying on going to the tutoring center for help, there is a chance that the questions you have can be answered in class. Being successful in college requires you to be engaged, be an active learner. This model puts you in a position to be engaged immediately if you accept it.
The set up is as follows.
- Watch lecture at home, answer questions in MyOpenMath (free online homework system) a pre-homework to make sure you are engaged as you watch the videos and examines the understanding. Take notes on the videos.
- The pre-homework and video notes are due the following class period. We start the class by answering questions on the concepts learned. Do an activity to further cement the ideas or uncover ideas that still need further explanation.
- The last hour to hour and half of class is dedicated to doing the homework (Medium to harder questions).
- Finish the questions you were not able to complete at home. You go home and watch the next lecture, and repeat the process.
- We will also do some in-class lab sheets to further cement concepts, not every day, depending on subject matter.
- Once a week there will quizzes on prior material.
This idea is nothing new and there have been reports on this approach.