Have you heard of the concept of a "flipped classroom?" It has nothing to do with changing furniture or hanging your students upside down. It has all to do with making better educational use of class time.
In a traditional class, student are provided with an introduction to a topic via, usually, a lecture, occasionally a more participatory activity. They are then left on their own to explore the topic and make it theirs.
In this different model, students are given information before class to introduce the topic and then spend class time in exercises, discussions, Q/A sessions and whatever else they need.
What makes this a novel method is the fact that students need the audio visual that comes from a lecture and in the past this could only be provided in class. But now we have technology that allows us to record a lecture and make it available to the students, thus avoiding the reliance on the (boring) textbook for the flipped model.
I have started trying it this year and it surely is a lot of work, but it is worth it. Class time is more enjoyable and profitable, old canards ("Did I miss anything") become irrelevant and students find it a very good tool.
Have you tried it? Have you heard of anyone who has? Whether yes or not, what do you think of the concept?
Roberto,
ReplyDeleteI love the concept, though imagine if every prof did it? Students would be overwhelmed! I also think this model tends to leave the borderline C/D student out.
What I love about it is it does put the onus on THEM to do work, if you're lazy, you'll fall behind VERY quickly, and I like that idea. Sometimes I find some courses (mine included!) can give the marginal student a false sense of security.
I think problem-solving courses like math, chemistry and physics would benefit greatly from this.
Keep it up!
Thanks Bryan,
DeleteI am not sure of why this would overwhelm the students. It does not involve more activities, but the same ones, only in a different environment. Instead of getting (passively) the lecture in class, they get it wherever and whenever they want. Instead of engaging in the more active exercises at home by themselves, they do it in class with the instructor and exchanging ideas with other students.
I do agree that it can leave the borderline students in a situation unknown to them: instead of scraping by - pretending to attend class while their mind is somewhere else - they are faced with the unfamiliar choice of whether they are in the course for real or not; whether they want to take responsibility for their learning or not. Notice also that most of the common excuses with which borderline students delude themselves lose their power almost completely.
That's my experience anyway. I would love to do some systematic research, but who has the time! Because it is in fact the teacher who is overwhelmed, at least at the beginning.
So, why do you think they would be overwhelmed? Would they even be whelmed?
I think it's a fantastic concept, I'd like to see more professors do it, or at the very least, I think having the lectures themselves recorded and posted alone would be of great help. More time hitting problems and discussion, the better in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteFor a minor example, in our reactor design course, there is a process simulator portion for laboratory. As it is our first exposure to this type of complex software many of us are struggling to keep up in the labs and tutorials during explanation. Our TA however has offered to record video tutorials for us. With a topic like this, it feels like if you get behind on one small step, you fall farther and farther behind in a very short time span. Having it recorded and made available grants the option of paying attention to the rest of the class and easily make up that back step later. Invaluable.
I can think of a few topics that I personally struggled with in first year where this would have been a huge help without having to pester you over and over. (volumes of rotation, inverse trig sub, all of linear algebra, etc)
To be able to hear you explain it again instead of trying to decipher the textbooks definitions would absolutely be a huge help.
(Also, would it maybe be possible for me to obtain a copy of some of these videos? It never hurts to review, especially with my brother starting his foray into Calculus, haha. This would definitely be a more enjoyable way of going back!)
Hi Tyson,
DeleteI would be glad to provide you with a link to the video. However I am building up the library as I go, which means that there are tons of links. If you are interested in some of them, let me know and I will send you the links. Next year I hope to have them more organized.
You can also go on Vimeo and search for my videos