Flipping the College Classroom

April 15, 2012 7 Comments

Flipping the College Classroom

For the past century, and probably for centuries before that, the typical classroom learning experience on just about every college campus in the world has remained the same. Oh sure, we’ve got PowerBooks and Power Point and lots of technological gizmos these days, but in most classrooms it’s the same as it ever was.  The faculty member – the Sage on the Stage – lectures while the students listen and take notes.

But oh how things have changed.  When I first started teaching my biggest problem was keeping an eye on students who were passing notes back and forth.  Now, it’s “Teacher vs. Twitter” as I am competing with Facebook, Google+, iPhones, iPads, Angry Birds and more.  The distraction factor is not even the worst part; it’s a true fact that just about everything I have to say in a three-hour lecture can be found via a three-second search on every student’s personal favorite electronic gizmo, sitting right there in their hand.   

Perhaps it is time for the classroom to change.

Lesson Plans in the Lurch.

To explain how the classroom can change, we first need to understand the learning process. To put it quite simply, there are two parts to the learning process:  transmission and assimilation. In a typical college classroom, transmission takes place as a professor lectures and students take notes.  Transmission also occurs during reading, although getting the students to actually read the textbook  is a challenge unto itself, and one that perhaps I should address at another time.

The second part of learning, assimilation, generally occurs outside a typical classroom as the student does homework, lab work, studies his notes, or takes part in a cooperative learning project.

Back to Bloom

If we refer back to the Learning Taxonomy of Benjamin Bloom, we can see that “transmission” involves the lower order level thinking skills of knowledge and understanding, while “assimilation” involves the higher order thinking skills of application, analysis, creation (synthesis) and evaluation.  In layman’s terms, “real” learning occurs outside the traditional classroom.

The big issue with this traditional model is that as the student’s cognitive load increases, the availability of help, in the form of the professor, decreases.  This model is reversed in a flipped classroom, where (to put it very, very simply) transmission occurs before class, and assimilation takes place during class, with the aid and help of the instructor.

Transmission…Before Class

The very technology that is causing widespread student distraction during class in the first place can be put to use in asking students to view a video of a lecture before class. Students can be assigned lectures to view via Youtube, iTunes or other media, and may be required to be involved in online chats or forum discussions. At its most basic, transmission before class can take the form of a good, old-fashioned text book reading assignment. 

Obviously, an excellent text book, a series of recorded lectures, and a reliable delivery system are pre-requisites for flipping the classroom. In addition, guided practice for basic knowledge and skills such as take-home or online quizzes or other types of homework should also be included and required as a “ticket for entry” into class.  Flipping a classroom just doesn’t work if the students don’t read, view, or do their assignments before class.

Assimilation…During Class

Instead of a lecture, the flipped classroom is used to reinforce, practice, and analyze the subject matter at hand through the use of a bank of interesting, challenging in-class assignments intended to assist in the assimilation phase of learning. In other words, you do your homework in class, where the teacher can watch over and guide you. Class time can also be used for debate, demonstration, discussion, and review of specific concepts.

Any instructor who has ever overseen a learning lab or a group project knows that directing activity in a classroom can be far more demanding than lecturing. Careful management and acute attention is demanded on a minute-by-minute basis in a flipped classroom, lest your well thought-out learning session turn into a group nap, a gossip session, or a brawl. (You professors know exactly what I mean.)

The Challenge for Educators

No one is saying that this type of teaching is easy. You are very likely to encounter student resistance, at least at first.  As a matter of fact, you should count on the fact that classes taught in this manner will be fraught with skeptical students for the first few weeks. Even students that say they play on Facebook all throughout class because the professor is boring are still likely to resist this alternative format as they are used to a class that requires very little in terms of effort, participation, and engagement.  Unfortunately, the ubiquitousness of the lecture format of teaching has bred a generation of students that are content to “zone out” for a few hours a day during class.

Student accountability is another issue. I’ve been in plenty of classrooms where it’s obvious the students didn’t do any of the assigned readings. I even had one student explain that he didn’t bother opening the book because “I did such a good job of teaching it.” (What do you say to that?) Accountability, such as readiness assessments done individually or in teams should be woven into the curriculum. However, the overriding hope for this method is that students will actually be better prepared for class because the materials are more engaging and they know that the class will be structured around the information assigned in advance.

Finally, this idea is not ideal for all disciplines, all subject matters, or even all the days in one particular course. I’ve found it works very well on about half of the days of my classes, and students need to know exactly what days to expect a flipped class.

What do you think…can you flip your college classroom?

 

The Bubbly Professor is “Miss Jane” Nickles of Austin, Texas

 

 

 

Filed under Train the Trainer Tagged with , , , , , ,

Flip Your Meetings!

April 29, 2012 6 Comments

The other day I was playing around online while waiting to board a plane.  I was finger-surfing on my iPad for articles on “flipping the classroom.” There’s been a lot of buzz about flipping the classroom, including here on The Bubbly Professor and lots of other blogs. The flipped classroom is such a great concept for teaching that it’s become my newest endeavor to read everything I can on the subject.

About ten minutes into my web surfing session I read a statement that literally changed my life. How often does that happen?

The statement was part of the introduction to what appeared to be a great article on flipping the classroom.  I say “appeared to be a great article” because I never read it.  This one sentence was so powerful I turned off the iPad, pulled out one of my handy-dandy yellow pads that I do all my “real” work on, and started writing.  My work life was forever changed!

Here is what I read, as close as I can remember:  “Do you leave meetings with more work to do than when the meeting began?”  Oh yes I do! Not only do I leave meetings with an elongated list of things to do, so does every poor soul who has ever attended a meeting that I was in charge of.

One simple sentence was to become my personal life-changing moment.  If you are the author of this sentence, please contact me.  I want to read the rest of your article.  I want to give you credit for this idea.  Most importantly, I want to worship at your feet for the rest of my life.

My True Story of Meeting-Flipping 

About two months ago, I had a faculty meeting.  My ten or so extremely dedicated  faculty members and I gathered around a round table and I led what I thought was a productive meeting.  The agenda had been distributed in advance, we had a lot of things to go over, and we had a lively discussion. Success (or so I thought)!

In my old (pre life-changing moment) way of leading meetings, it was a success. But in my new way of thinking….it was a waste of time!!!  Here’s why:  one of the items on my agenda was this:  Annual Faculty Development plans due by April 1!

What had actually happened during my “successful” meeting?  I distributed some information that could have been done just as easily (and much faster) via email, and everyone present left my meeting with “one more thing do.” And for the record, how many faculty development plans were turned in by April 1?  Zero!!!

The New Meeting World Order

So here’s how I led the next faculty meeting.  I sent out a meeting invitation that read as follows: “We will complete your annual faculty development plan at this meeting.  Please start thinking about what you would like to do this coming year in order to improve your teaching ability.  This can include conferences, seminars, courses you’d like to take, professional certifications you’d like to achieve or anything else you can think of.  See you next Friday!”

Faculty Development Friday

When the meeting came around, we met in the same conference room around the same table as we always had before.  But this time, when our hour was up, no one left the room groaning that they had one more thing to accomplish in an already busy schedule.  Instead,  everyone had a completed Annual Faculty Devlopment Plan.  It was fun, and it was easy. 

To start the meeting, I gave everyone a blank copy of our faculty development plan template.  I had everyone fill in their name, anniversary dates, employee Id numbers, all that stuff.  Then, we went down the list of items to fill out.

First item – Professional Certification:  “What professional certifications are you interested in pursing this year?  Who wants to work towards their CEC? Great, what are the steps.  Study, take the practice tests, take the written test, take the practical exam, complete the final application packet and mail off. If you are interested in the CEC write these steps down in section one and fill in the completion dates that will work for you.  Who would like to pursue a CSW?  Great, what are the steps?  Get a study guide, study, take the  practice tests, review with your mentor, take the written exam.  If you would like to pursue a CSW, write all that down in section one and fill in the dates that work for you.”  And so on, and so on…in about 15 minutes we had all finished section one.

Next section – Training offered Internally:  “Everyone write these down…Sticky Teaching on May 15, Brain Rules for Teachers on June 12, Bloom’s Taxonomy on July 25 (etc, etc.). These are the faculty development sessions that I will conduct in house.  You need to try to attend at least six of these and when you do, make sure to note on your faculty development form three take-aways from each session that you plan to use in your teaching in the coming year.”  Ten minutes later…section two done!

Next section – Training Obtained Externally: “Here’s a list of classes and workshops offered on-line.  Two have already been budgeted for each of you.  Pick the two that most interest you and write them on your form. If you have a conference or convention in mind that you’d like to attend, write it down and I will let you know if we can budget for it by the end of the month.” Twelve minutes later, section three done.!

Final section – Classroom Observations:  “Everyone write down the name of the class you are teaching this semester that you would like me to visit in order to conduct a classroom observation.  Same thing for next semester.  When the Fall and Winter schedule comes out, be sure and update your plan and let me know which class you’d like me to visit.”  Ten minutes later, we’re done.

One hour from start to finish and everyone has their faculty development plan done.  Everyone had the opportunity to benefit from the ideas and challenges of their colleagues.  Everyone is excited about the opportunity to improve their teaching skills. Everyone has a new professional certification goal in mind. Best of all, everyone – including me – gets to check one big giant thing off of their big giant “to do” list.

What else can I say? I’m a meeting flipper for life.  And if this was your idea….make yourself known!

Filed under Train the Trainer Tagged with , , , ,

Flip it Good!

September 30, 2012 4 Comments

The Flipped Classroom…we’ve all heard and read a great deal about it, and I have been enthusiastically using it in my Professional Wine Studies Class for about a year.  (In case this is the first time you’ve heard of flipping a classroom, you can read one of my original posts about it here.)

About a week ago, I wrapped up a semester of teaching in a mode that I deem “as flipped as humanly possible.”  I tried to take every possible opportunity to fill my classes with “ABL” (Anything But Lecture),  while making sure that the “transmission” of new knowledge occurred one way or another, whether inside or outside the classroom.  (In a true “flipped classroom”, the transmission of learning takes place outside the classroom.  This assumes our students do the reading or the watching of assigned videos.  I’m still easing my students into that idea.)

To achieve my “as flipped as possible” goal, I used in-class activities, discussions, and group projects daily.  Sometimes the activities worked out great, and sometimes I found myself tap-dancing to keep the class in order. 

Here’s a few things I learned during my semester of flipping dangerously:   

1.  Keep the groups small.  I found that for a many projects, 2 students is an ideal number.  It seems that with only two students in a group, no one can afford to be the “group slacker.”  Three people in a group also works well, but in groups of 4 or more you tend to have 1 or 2 people working diligently, and 1 or 2 people playing on their iPhones.

2.  As soon as the teams are arranged, have the teams choose a group leader who will be responsible for turning work in, presenting their work to the class or ensuring that the group gets credit for their assignment, in whatever form that is. 

3.  Always have “extra credit” or “further learning” sections of a project available for the one hot shot group or team that does a great job and finishes before everyone else.  If you don’t have extra activities for them, the hot shot group will not have anything left to do and may feel that class is a “waste of time.”

4.  Pre-script every class project or discussion with “Come Get Me” moments.  Design these so that after each segment of a class project, the students stop and discuss it with you before moving on.  Another way to keep the class on an even keel is to divide a group project into chunks that should take about 15 minutes to a half hour.  After every “chunk”, bring the class back together to share and discuss their findings.  

6.  Most important of all, remember that the time when your class is working in groups or otherwise on projects, you as the instructor are still “on stage” as much as when you are lecturing.  This is NOT your time to catch up on your email, read a book, or grade papers.  While you don’t want to “hover over them” and make everyone nervous, you also don’t want to disengage.  I’ve found the best thing for me to do while the students are working in groups is to sit down somewhere off to the side of the classroom and keep an eye on the groups, much as I do when proctoring a test. That way everyone knows where to find me, no one feels like they are “interrupting” me when they ask for help, and I can quickly respond to a group that wants to “flag me over”.

What do you think?  Do you have any “Flip it Good” advice?  We’d love to hear from you!

The Bubbly Professor is “Miss Jane” Nickles of Austin, Texas

Filed under Train the Trainer Tagged with , , , , ,