Experience in ECON 301 (F15)

Flipping the Classroom

Brian J. GrossAssistant ProfessorEconomicsWhittier College

What is "Flipping"?

• "The flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed." (Educause, 2012)

• In many cases this means:– Pre-recorded lectures for students to

view outside of class– Followed by in-class

activities/exercises/worksheets/etc.

What I did• I recorded a lecture video

– Actually, a series of lecture videos of 15 minutes in length each

• I then created a worksheet or activity to complete in class

• In class, I allowed ample time for questions and while students did exercises, I could go around and help them individually

Technology Used

• A tablet with active (Wacom) digitizer and pen – There are drawing pads for macs/PCs

(www.wacom.com)

• Bluebeam Revu (www.revu2015.com)– To "ink" my lecture on my laptop

• SnagIt (www.techsmith.com/snagit.html)– To record my screen and audio as I

wrote the lecture

On the Video...

On the Video...A 30 second clip, to show what it looks like..

In Moodle...

In Moodle...

In Moodle...

In Class...

In Class...

Challenges1. Recording the video takes time...

– I found it typically took about twice as long to record a lecture than it would for me to actually give it owing to prep and processing:• e.g. watching it afterwards; editing out stuff

2. ...and a quiet space– My office on campus didn't work well; had to

be at home

3. It was difficult to lecture in a way that would not reference discussions had in class – (so this video could be used in future years)

Students liked...

1. The experience, as a whole.– In response to a questionnaire, most said

they would like to do it again– No one indicated anything negative

about it

2. Being able to go through the lecture at their own pace– Either more slowly/ re-watching parts

they didn't understand– Or skipping/ fast-forwarding through

material they feel good about

3. Going over the problems and getting help in class

I liked...1. Being able to show up to class without

needing to lecture. That was nice.

2. Now having that lecture available for use next year – Some of it was also material I find the

least enjoyable to teach.

I liked...3. I was able to do more than I usually

could– I took exam problems from previous

years and made a worksheet out of it

– For the second iteration, I tried out a game/simulation I would not have had time for

– I was able to cover more material than I could have reasonably expected during the class period

Assessing Outcomes

• For feedback and impressions, I had them fill out an anonymous questionnaire– There were no serious problems/complaints.

• Judging by overall student performance on the exam following the first Flipped Class, – My feeling is that they did not learn as much

on that material (in regards to my learning outcomes) as they would have were it a normal lecture

– But I do not think this is a function of the method itself, but rather its execution. In fact, I think I could simply tweak the in-class experience a bit to focus on the key difficulties.

Assessing Outcomes

• Judging by my impressions from the in-class experience following the second Flipped Class, – I was very impressed with how prepared

students were for class, having taken thorough notes (in their own hand-writing) of the lecture

– And most everyone, with the support of fellow students in groups, were able to successfully complete very difficult math problems

– Many went much further than I can typically expect students to go in the material

– Overall, I consider this iteration a great success

Conclusions & Recommendation

s• It was definitely worth doing

• I hope to re-use the videos next year, and create more flipped classes

• I expect to build (over time) a repository of at least 5, perhaps 10 flipped classes

• Especially for those in quantitative sciences, I highly recommend trying something like this