So, this teaching tip is ALL IN. I’ll also post a smaller teaching tip, but I presented this at convocation and am a complete convert.
“Flipping the classroom” or the “inverted classroom” is when the content is delivered to the students outside the classroom in the form of readings or video lectures and the students come to work to practice and work with the content. This is in contrast to the normal classroom where students sit in a lecture and are then sent home to get the practice, when they don’t have the benefit of their classmates and instructor.
I decided to try this last semester in my statistics class. This was an ideal class to flip because there’s a lot of conceptually difficult material and not enough time to cover our course outline in 3 units. Admittedly, under the traditional lecture model, I found myself struggling to introduce two sample inference and couldn’t get to Chi-Square or ANOVA. Faculty surveys at Mesa and Miramar showed that this was a common problem. I had also seen a lot of GREAT activities at conferences and workshops and wanted to find a way to incorporate them into my class.
So, I flipped my class. I made it through ANOVA and finished all the material TWO WEEKS EARLY. I added a project which we presented in the last week. I had more students pass than ever before. And the average final exam scores were 5 points higher than the previous semester. When I normally had to run from student to student to answer questions during any worksheet, I found myself standing around with nothing to do because the students were working together and helping each other. By giving them lectures to watch before class, I wasn’t the only expert in the room. It was amazing.
I created a website for convocation with some of the technology I used, student feedback, stuff to do in class (though general because it was for the whole school), and ways to keep students accountable for watching videos before class. Check it out here: FLIPPING OUT
Mesa Math Department 