What is flipping the classroom?
Arguably, the most talked about teaching strategies in higher education today are “flipping the classroom” approaches. Flipping typically refers to approaches that require students to significantly engage with instructional content before coming to class. Class time is then spent engaging in activities other than traditional lecturing. In some discussions, flipping has been framed as a panacea for all of the learning challenges faced by colleges and universities. The reality is that successful flipping requires a great deal of creativity and planning, and simply pushing lecture content online is not an effective approach. With that said, creative flipping can be a powerful instructional strategy.
Why flip my classroom?
Well-designed flipped activities can prove to be an effective and rewarding instructional strategy that increases students’ time engaged with course material and can result in deeper learning.
How do I flip my classroom?
Those who are considering flipped pedagogies typically must address three broad questions:
- What are the out of class activities/assignments I will provide my students?
- How do I motivate my students to engage with those activities?
- If I am not lecturing, what do I do with the reclaimed class time?
Tools you can use:
Pre-Class Activities
In the flipping model, the out of class activities and assignments provide students with opportunities to significantly engage with the content that will be more deeply explored in the upcoming class. This pre-class engagement really should be designed to provide students with knowledge and information that will enable them to engage in a meaningful way during the upcoming class. Ask yourself “what do my students need to know to be able to engage in the upcoming class?” and use the answer to that question to guide your development of the pre-class activities. Watching videos or lectures, listening to podcasts, exploring online simulations, reading an article or chapter, engaging in discussion boards, reflective writing, and more are among the wide set of strategies faculty have available to them as they provide opportunities for students to engage with content before class.
Tools you can use:
- Kaltura, the UGA media storage and streaming service, includes a number of tools for capturing, basic editing, and captioning video.
- The discussion boards in eLC are a great way to have students engage before class.
- CTL Sites - create a course level blog or have students create individual blogs using CTL's WordPress installation.
Motiviating Students to Engage with Class
One of the criticisms of flipping the classroom is that many faculty are already finding that students aren’t completing readings and other homework before coming to class. The concern is that if we add more homework in the form of media or other activities, students won’t engage with these assignments either. How do we motivate our students to engage with the these additional homework activities? One answer is the implementation of frequent quizzing. These quizzes would be due prior to students coming to class. Jose Bowen, author of Teaching Naked (2011), has found that quizzing that contributes to the final course grade motivates students to complete the pre-class activities and results in greater engage during in-class activities. In addition to quizzing, you may consider other forms of assessment, such as 25-word summaries, engagement in discussion boards, etc. All of which provide accountability for completing the pre-class assignments.
Tools you can use:
- The Quiz tool in eLC can be used to provide online quizzes after students engage with pre-class activities but before they come to class.
- Student response systems, such as TurningPoint or Top Hat, can be used for in-class quizzing. Learn more about student response systems at UGA.
Strategies Other Than Lecuring
With appropriate, graded accountability measures in place, you can expect your students to come to class prepared to engage in your active classroom. There is well over 30 years of research regarding the efficacy of active strategies. A meta-analysis of these studies recently found support for a wide range of active learning approaches (Prince, 2004). Such strategies provide a menu of sorts from which you might select your in-class approaches. Instead of lecturing, you might consider Think-Pair-Share, self-assessments, minute-papers, peer reviews, case-based approaches, team-based and other collaborative approaches, role-playing, inquiry learning, and many other options.
Tools you can use:
- Five things I wish I knew about the Flipped Classroom
- National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science
The Center for Teaching and Learning is happy to work with you to develop strategies that will work for your discipline/course. Contact Megan Mittelstadt today for a consultation.