Flipping the HE classroom into the future

Dr Jennie Osborn

The Higher Education Academy, UK 3 July 2015

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The lecture.

A lecture at the University of Bologna in Italy in the mid-fourteenth century. Laurentius de Voltolina

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Covering the content

Lecturing 1: Evidence about lecturing, epigeum, https://epigeum.com/downloads/uct_accessible/uk/01_lecturing1/html/course_files/2_30.html

“Any account of [The Waste Land] has to face that fact and take on board the proven historical fact that Eliot read and digested John Maynard Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace, his great attack on the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 in which the four allied powers - the United States, Britain, France and Italy - imposed a punitive, or as it was known, Carthaginian peace on Germany.

Keynes's vision of a derelict Europe, the hot, dry atmosphere in the chamber where the negotiations were conducted, the destruction of industry and the exhaustion of the soil all feed Eliot's vision of the European wasteland. Noting Keynes's influence, we can see that at least sporadically in the poem, Eliot offers a subtle liberal humanist vision of the European wreckage.”

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Inspiration

Tom Paulin, ‘All at sea in The Waste Land’, The Observer, Sunday 7 January 2007, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jan/07/poetry.biography

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Technology

“I have been teaching anatomy for nearly 10 years and continually try to create innovative resources that support students. The majority of these resources take the individual elements of lectures, which I believe to be a powerful method of engaging and inspiring students, and make them available in a format that is accessible anytime and anywhere. I created a series of screencasts that mirrored the ‘chalk and talk’ element of my lectures. I made these resources available on YouTube and have now established a very successful channel that provides resources for students of anatomy from around the globe.”

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James Pickering

@AccessAnatomy

https://www.youtube.com/user/fbsjdp

What is the flipped classroom?

Derek Bruff, The Flipped Classroom FAQ, CIRTL Network, 15 September 2012 http://www.cirtl.net/node/7788

The usual approach:

The flipped approach:

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The basic flip

in class

at home

• Pace: students are able to explore new material at their own pace, to review content and to reflect upon their learning needs.

• Self-responsibility: students are responsible for their own learning out of class.

• Active learning: students are active in class, and therefore more able to deepen learning and develop higher level cognitive skills, e.g. through collaborative activity, peer learning and problem based learning.

• Support: teacher becomes facilitator and able to support individual student learning and offer instant feedback.

• Engagement: students are more engaged and less anxious.

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Why flip?

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Who’s flipping?

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Cranfield University

Out of class

• Textbook materials

• Mini-lectures/slideshows

In class

Students undertake:

• problem sets

• lab exercises

• peer support

Tutor offers:

• mini-lectures

• help for individual students

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Classic flip

Boise State University: Advanced statistics class

M. Touchton, (2015), ‘Flipping the classroom and student performance in advanced statistics: evidence from a quasi-experiment’, Journal of Political Science Education, 11:1.

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The appliance of science?

“It would appear unrealistic to contemplate any chemistry department approximately halving the material delivered on its degree programmes to make way for the desired interactivity. So just how do we make better use of the existing timetable, movefrom lectures towards something more tutorial-like and ensure students' own self-directed study time becomes more purposeful? The answer, in its various guises, is flipped teaching.”

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Professor Simon Lancaster

Simon Lancaster, 2013, ‘The flipped lecture’, NDIR, 9:1, doi:10.11120/ndir.2013.00010

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Flipping the Humanities

In my case, the flipped class worked—but not the way you think. Yes, the students did a more thorough job reading Shakespeare than they had with Dante. But we never had a chance to have the kind of discussion for which college was invented: the kind that happens when careful reading gets done at home, so there is time in class for everyone’s ideas to be challenged, everyone’s theories to be pushed and tested. Yes, they read carefully—but the reading itself took up so much of class that I felt their “end point” was still, in some ways, more cursory than a traditional class would have been. 17

Are the humanities unflippable?

Rebecca Schuman, ‘The flipped classroom’, Slate, 19 February 2014http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/02/flipped_classrooms_in_college_lectures_online_and_problem_sets_in_the_classroom.2.html

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A three quarters flip with twist

25 lectures + 1 practical session2 seminars with reading2 student led seminarsSet essayStudent led presentation

8 lectures17 flipped sessions1 practical session4 student led seminarsStudent led essayStudent led presentation

Some participationSome engagement in seminarsLittle critical engagementAttendance issuesLack of confidence in presentation

2012

2013Increased contribution Increased preparationIncreased participation Increased discussionImproved attendanceIncreased student confidence

Enrietta Bissa, The three quarters flip with twist, 3 June 2014, http://bit.ly/1HkzI3U

“Far from being just a different way of delivering the same material, the ‘flipped’ classroom has enabled teaching methods to be taken apart piece-by-piece and re-assembled so that it is now far more fit for purpose in terms of what learners require.”

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A constellation of techniques

Martin, M. (2015) ‘Flipping the classroom: on the road to independent, critical reading in first year English’, English Literature (blended learning), St. Mary’s University College, Belfast. In Thomas, L. (ed.) Compendium of effective practice in directed independent learning, York, The Higher Education Academy, https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/node/10476 )

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From FLIP to FLIPPED

• Flexible environment

• Learning culture

• Intentional content

• Professional educator

PLUS

• Progressive activities

• Engaging experiences

• Diversified platformsChen et al,. 2014, ‘Is FLIP enough? Or should we use the FLIPPED model instead? Computers and Education, 79, 16-27.

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As a student, I hate the flipped class

“As a student, I hate the flipped classroom. In my personal experience, it involves teaching yourself everything outside the classroom and then having an in-depth pre-class quiz before you even get to class. In order to do well on the pre-class quiz, you basically have to have mastered the concepts before you even get to class. When you get to class, your teacher then proceeds to waste your time by boring you with a lecture on the material you spent four hours mastering the day before. #BYUAccounting”

Flipping the flipped classroom concept on its head, Brigham Young University, comment posted: Against Flipped Classroom, 3/3/2015 7:00 PM by Clinton, http://news.byu.edu/archive15-mar-flipped.aspx

• Be prepared

• Communicate clearly with students

• Set clear expectations

• Explain to students how flipped format will benefit their learning

• Market the model

• Don’t tell your students you are ‘flipping’ or ‘experimenting’

• Vary your instruction

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Overcoming resistance

Overcoming student resistance to Flipped Instruction, Purdue University http://www.itap.purdue.edu/learning/cdm/supporting/FlippedModel/OvercomingResistance.html

• “Dr J Anthony Rossiter receives a lot of unwarranted negativity. The majority of students have no desire to put any sort of effort into their subjects and expect it all to be given to them on a plate. Dr J Anthony Rossiter provides great material through his lectures and videos, he is the best lecturer I’ve had by far. If you do as he says and watch the short videos on the schedule he provides then the course is very simple”

• “All the content was available online including lecture videos, which makes it really easy to review it at my own speed.”

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Consistency of (high) expectation

Feedback from students taking the module from outside the programme:

• “Despite the fact that the content is available online it should still be taught in the lectures rather than expecting students to have watched all the lectures beforehand.”

• “Lower workload as it is difficult to find time to watch all videos, complete tutorial sheets and do online quizzes.”

Rossiter, J.A. and Gray, L., (2015) ‘Developing student independent learning skills in an engineering department’, In Thomas, L.. (ed.) Compendium of effective practice in directed independent learning, York, The Higher Education Academy), https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/node/10476

“For me, though, the most interesting aspect of the flipped-course fad is that flipping is not that innovative at all. Just like its flashier cousin the MOOC, the flipped model prizes a method of conveying information—the lecture, huge, impersonal, and ever-prone to skipping and slacking—that many professors don’t even like. Why isn’t the solution to replace the massive lecture course with discussion-based seminars? How, instead, is the answer to record the lecture—to make it the length (and intellectual depth) of a TED talk, and even more impersonal?”

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So, what is the use of lectures?

Rebecca Schuman, ‘The flipped classroom’, Slate, 19 February 2014http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/02/flipped_classrooms_in_college_lectures_online_and_problem_sets_in_the_classroom.2.html

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Content: the condensed classroom?

Ian Bogost, The Condensed Classroom, The Atlantic, 27 August 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/08/the-condensed-classroom/279013

/

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20th century learning?

• Performing set tasks• Efficiency• Uniformity • Timeliness• Standardisation• Hierarchy – vertical

management structures• Specialisation• Expertise • Compliance• Quantifiable outcomes

LEGO group:

“The new main office in London is designed to increase collaboration. The workplace is divided into flexible work zones with no fixed seating and no offices for managers . . . .”

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21st century workplace

LEGO group innovates daily work in London office, LEGO, 28 November 2014http://www.lego.com/en-gb/AboutUs/news-room/2014/november/legogroupinnovatesdailyworkinlondonoffice

“We have introduced an entirely new way of working in the new office. The biggest impact is that the traditional, physical concept of ‘a department’ has dissolved and this encourages cross-organisational collaboration even more than we are used to in the LEGO Group . . . . ”

“For us, this is a move towards an office culture that embraces the diversity of the entire organisation and offers a work environment that allows employees from very different parts of our organisation to learn from each other and thereby allows us to think and act more holistically – ultimately making better decisions.” Bali Padda

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how you think

comfort with ambiguity

bias to action

collaborative nature

problem solving

multiple skill sets

team oriented

Googleyness

passion

smart

there is not one right answer

leadership

people who get things done

solutions focussed

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Collaboration skills can’t be googled

Kathi Inman Berens, ‘Double Flip: 3 Insights Flipping the Humanities Seminar,’ Hybrid Pedagogy, January 23 2014, http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/double-flip-3-insights-flipping-humanities-seminar/

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Making flip work: pre-class

• Interactivity

• Formative feedback – assessment for learning

• Coherent link between pre-class and in-class work

• Motivate engagement – create ‘a need to know’.

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Story of a Singapore flip

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Teaching from the back of the class

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Students as partners

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Flipping into the future . . .