Flipped Classroom

John Rykowski

As I’ve progressed through my career in teaching I’ve increasingly realized the benefits of involving students in group work. For the past several years I’ve received rather consistent comments from students saying that they see real value in group work in class, but they also wanted to do more of it. I used to think I wouldn’t have the time due to the amount of material that needed to be covered in a survey course, but then I decided to use a simple economic theory to solve the problem, that of efficiency. Economics can be an especially difficult discipline for many students, but there are also many concepts that they could acquire on their own. It made sense that I should follow my student’s suggestion and provide them with substantially more time in class to work through problems in collaboration with each other. This prompted me to adopt the “flipped classroom” format in Fall 2012.

In a flipped classroom the students do at home what is traditionally done in the classroom, and they do in class what is traditionally done at home. I ask my students to read a chapter in the text, watch a video lecture (more on this later), post any questions they may have in a forum on Moodle, and complete an online quiz, all prior to discussing that particular chapter in class. I then take the 15 multiple-choice quiz questions and sort them from most-missed on down. We then spend class time discussing the most-missed concepts in class largely through extensive problem solving in groups. This way I’m assured on using the limited time we have in class on those topics requiring the most attention. I will do a “mini-lecture” (about 15-20 minutes) on those chapters that are content-heavy or include particularly difficult concepts. Web link for further information on Flipped Classroom: http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/castingoutnines/tag/flipped-classroom/

The video lecture is a key component of the flipped classroom. I used Panopto software to record both the audio and the video feeds. I used the publisher-provided PowerPoint slides as the background for most of the lectures since that allowed me to create the videos in a relatively short period of time. I spent most of the month of July 2012 recording approximately 24 chapters worth of lectures for both my Macroeconomics and Microeconomics courses. I wanted to keep each video relatively focused in terms of content, and I wanted to encourage my students to view each of them, so I decided to break down each chapter into approximately 2-5 separate video lectures, each being approximately 5-15 minutes in length. I figured one lecture per chapter lasting over an hour would have a much lower probability of being watched than several briefer, more focused videos. This also facilitates easier searches if a student simply wants to review a particular segment of a topic. Web link for further information on Panopto: http://www.panopto.com/lecture-capture

I also decided to have my students begin using clickers last semester. This is a rather simple technology that’s been used in elementary and secondary education for some time but is only now beginning to catch on in colleges and universities. The single biggest benefit of using clickers is that they provide me instant feedback on how well my students comprehend a particular concept. I have the luxury of seeing how my students respond as soon as they make their selection. If I see that most of them are selecting an incorrect response, I have options. I could simply close the question out and make their answers count, or more likely, I could provide them with a hint that will teach them how to work their way through a particular type of problem. Until I close out a question, the students may change their response as many times as they wish. After a question is closed the students will see a summary of how many chose each response, so they can see how they measure up with their fellow classmates. This can provide each of them with a valuable heads-up on topics requiring more attention. Given how limited the adult attention span is, clicker use provides just enough of a change of pace to keep things interesting. Finally, clickers also allow students to respond anonymously. This can be especially beneficial for students who are particularly shy or when asking opinion questions on sensitive issues (politics, religious beliefs, etc.). Web link for further information on i>Clicker: http://www.iclicker.com/

I hope that something you have read here will inspire you to at least consider implementing some type of alternative method of teaching in your classroom. As an educator I feel that it is incumbent on each of us to continuously explore new and better ways to motivate our students to learn. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to further discuss any of these teaching strategies.

My email address: jrykowski@kvcc.edu