High tech enabling high touch

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Permalink Reply by Delia Rosenblatt Heck on July 25, 2012 at 9:51pm

My students indicated this spring that the flipped classroom wouldn't work for them as they would not take the time to do those passive activities before class.  They would then struggle to engage with the in-class activity because they weren't prepared and didn't understand the material.  I was surprised that they were honest about their lack of effort outside of the classroom.

Permalink Reply by Donnell King on July 25, 2012 at 10:23pm

Gotta appreciate the honesty, but also I would be tempted to tell them, "OK, let's just save you a lot of effort and assign your Fs now. Would that fit your plan?" [smile] Just sayin'.

All kidding aside, I have found it necessary to plow ahead with it anyway--part of making it work is making it clear I will not take class time to catch up people who don't do the work ahead of time. I engage with the people who are ready to engage, and let the grades fall where they may. I'm also explicit about this, usually with a comment like, "I get paid the same regardless, folks. You can sit back, be unprepared, and take the consequences, or you can have fun getting involved. Your choice."

How did it turn out?

Permalink Reply by Dr. Byron Phillips on July 25, 2012 at 11:41pm

Hello Donnell,

I am applying many aspects of the "flipped-classroom" in my on campus classes. The students enjoy my approach and it results in much more active learning on the part of my students in class

I emphasize the value of the "flipped-classroom" to the faculty I train at the Pittsburgh campus.

Byron

 

Permalink Reply by Wendy Lightheart on July 26, 2012 at 1:07am

Donnell, I love your response.  I always encourage my students to read through the material before class, to be better prepared, but it's clear that students rarely do so.

Last fall, I began teaching a hybrid version of beginning and elementary algebra at my community college.  By "hybrid version", I mean that the students meet on campus only one day per week for 2 hrs (compared to 4 hrs per week for traditional students).  They are required to do online homework and quizzes, in addition to some homework that must be handed in and paper-and-pencil tests in class.  I also assign media assignments to help them do much of the learning at home.  I have found that by requiring them to prepare for class via the media assignments (and associated prep sheets), these students are much more prepared for class than my typical beginning algebra students.  Now, I am hoping to "flip" my traditional lecture courses, using the same media assignments and prep sheets, as well as incorporating SoftChalk, to help them prepare before they come to class.  I'm really excited because now I envision a class environment where students are much more prepared and engaged, we spend most of our class time doing group activities, and I can coach them as they practice several examples before being set loose to tackle the homework on their own. 

 

Delia, have you looked into a way to make the students accountable for the passive work that you'd assign if you were to try a "flipped classroom"?

 

Dr. Phillips, I'd love to hear more about how you incorporate aspects of the "flipped-classroom" in your classes. 

 

Wendy

Permalink Reply by Alice Wujciak on July 26, 2012 at 1:22am

Donnell King said:

Gotta appreciate the honesty, but also I would be tempted to tell them, "OK, let's just save you a lot of effort and assign your Fs now. Would that fit your plan?" [smile] Just sayin'.

All kidding aside, I have found it necessary to plow ahead with it anyway--part of making it work is making it clear I will not take class time to catch up people who don't do the work ahead of time. I engage with the people who are ready to engage, and let the grades fall where they may. I'm also explicit about this, usually with a comment like, "I get paid the same regardless, folks. You can sit back, be unprepared, and take the consequences, or you can have fun getting involved. Your choice."

How did it turn out?

Even without the online aspect, I've "flipped" my Speech class. I assign the chapter to be read, and the first thing I do is to give them a quiz on it. Then we proceed to discuss it and prepare speeches. I ask easy, general questions. I've even asked a multiple choice question, "What is the name of this chapter?", giving incorrect choices of made-up chapter names, and the name of a previous chapter.  I let the unprepared students lose points.

There's nothing like a test to get them excited about studying!  Once recently, I was struggling to get their attention to understand a concept. As soon as I announce a test on it, they all wanted to know exactly how to do it!

The blow-back? When I got to read student evaluations of the class a semester later, one student opined, "I think we should have the quizzes after the chapter."  I wondered what the Dean must have thought of that comment! (I never heard from him on it.)

Permalink Reply by Paul Robert Roden on July 26, 2012 at 8:47am

Donnell,

Excellent topic and questions.  I believe the ideal is  a "blend" of both online and face to face.  Some students are more adept at learning totally online.  There are some tools and techniques that instructors or professors can use to make the online experience more engaging and inviting to the student.  Adding polls, video as well as two way chat to break up the lecture are some of the way.  Capturing your live lecture and putting it up on the LMS after your presentation is delivered face to face or alternately, delivering your lecture with audio narration of your slides for student to replay again or to pause and/or repeat is another way.  Simulation or use of "Second Life", going on a "scavanger hunt" on the Web and other "discovery learning methods" are two other ways to make the learning experience more interesting.  Breaking your class into study or tasked with preparing a topic to present to the rest of the class is another way to engage your students.  I am currently half way through a online master's degree in instructional technology management, and I have barely scratched the surface. The only frustrating thing as a student and as well as a training manager/instructional designer is the LMS we use, Blackboard.  Is there any LMS or CMS system that works as advertised or trained on that doesn't crash or malfunction?  Undergraduates and graduate students everywhere, my two children who are undergraduate and graduate students respectively and their friends have had the same experience and opinion as I do.

Permalink Reply by Caterina Bristol on July 26, 2012 at 9:07am

As I read through material regarding the "flipped classroom" my reaction was, "This is just asking students to do what teachers have always expected, read, review, and prepare material prior to coming to class."  Someone decided to give it a buzzword and voila a "new" pedagogy is created.  It appears from some of those that indicate that they have used this approach successfully that it improves faculty engagement in the teaching process, namely by encouraging them to provide more interactive or enhanced learning materials. Perhaps the idea is more about engaging faculty because through engaged faculty you will have better engaged students.

Permalink Reply by Donnell King on July 26, 2012 at 1:13pm

Excellent discussion! I'm wrapping up a summer term--have a ton of exams and final papers to grade. I'm looking forward to reading more when I can get back here, and interacting! In the short time I have, I thought I would throw into this discussion an insight that comes from my "other hat" in speaking professionally.These two sentences from a webinar stuck with me (and I cannot remember the source to give proper credit, but the idea needs sharing): "If our primary value lies in sharing information delivered from the front of a room, we are all in trouble. They can get information more easily, more quickly and more cheaply elsewhere. We have to give them a unique experience as we help them create and realize meaning beyond mere information if we are to survive and thrive."

We the flipped classroom is just another flavor of the month or a useful way of thinking about effective pegagogy (andragogy?) will depend solely on what we do. Caterina, I love the idea of engaging faculty and thereby engaging students. Thank you!

More later--I hope you'll all come back too.