Karen Silvestri and Steven Byrd

The Learning Center at Robeson Community College

Using Flipped Learning in the College Classroom

Professional Development Workshop

Also called

• Flipped Lesson• Flipped Learning• Flipping the Classroom• Inverted Learning• Balanced Learning

What is Flipped Learning?• Becoming increasingly popular in many academic arenas from

primary school to university. Traditional mode of instruction: • lesson content (lecture) during class• brief in-class practice• homeworkFlipped mode of instruction: • lesson content (lecture) before class• class time to practice concepts (do homework)• Students participate in learning activities with the instructor

present to help them.

Introduction• This short video briefly introduces you to the founder of flipped learning,

Sal Khan and how flipped learning works. • We ask that you write down questions and thoughts during and directly

after viewing.

• This is an example of what instructors would ask students to do before coming to class.

60 minutes video on YouTube 13:27 minuteshttp://youtu.be/zxJgPHM5NYI

Some Advantages for Educators

• Students who enjoy your class are more likely to not only attend but to be more involved

• Less time spent behind the laptop lecturing• Time for hands-on learning and creative projects• Excellent video lectures are freely/easily available• Less time planning lessons (once you’ve made your videos or

screencasts, you can use them over and over)• The direct, face-to-face interaction of flipped learning

provides a workaround for situations where classroom technology is unavailable, unreliable, or otherwise not ideal

Encourages student engagement

• A successful flipped learning classroom gives students no choice BUT to become involved; student preparation, engagement, and participation become even more necessary parts of student success

• The flipped classroom environment, with its new focus on practical exercises and creative activities, makes student engagement easier, more fun, and more rewarding

Advantages of Flipping for Students

Encourages higher student

engagement

Provides increased

individualized attention

Makes learning central,

rather than teaching

Fosters independent

learning

Promotes peer interaction and collaboration

skills

The Homework Dilemma

•Student gets frustrated and gives up•Teacher reviews homework in class•Many students are afraid to ask for help or didn’t do the homework•Student does not read the comments teacher puts on graded homework

•Teacher is there to help student when they get stuck•Review takes place in class with peers and teacher•Teacher is present to watch for students who are struggling and offer immediate help•Students get immediate verbal feedback while they are working

Where do I start???

Timing the Flipped Lesson• Flipping a lesson does not have to be a total restructure of your classroom

environment. It is a learning strategy that you choose when and where to incorporate. It may work great for some lessons and not so great for others.

• You don’t have to flip your whole semester at one time. Start small with a single lesson!

• “During class, you want to limit the amount of time you lecture, and increase the time students spend applying the day’s material to interesting problems. Leverage the fact that everyone is in the same place at the same time by asking students to work collaboratively on problems, giving each other support and feedback. Give yourself opportunities to circulate among your students to check in on their understanding, answer their questions, and prompt them to think more deeply.” (Bruff, 2012)

When Should You Flip ?

• When the content is challenging• When students struggle with a concept • When the students need greater differentiation, support, review,

remediation, and engagement• When you know students will benefit from plenty of face to face

interaction• When you have a highly interactive involved activity. Students get

to apply, discuss, and make connections with the topic.• When you are teaching topics that need greater depth of

understanding. • It is NOT for memorizing procedures.

http://www.edtechtips.org/2012/09/18/flip-classroom-instruction-1/

Learning Objects

• Many teachers already use Learning Objects whether they realize it or not.

• Basically, a learning object consists of instructional content, practice, and assessment of a single learning objective. One example might be a learning object on Sentence Fragments.

• When flipping a lesson, you are essentially offering the instructional content (IC) of the learning object (LO) BEFORE the actual class.

The Process• Start with your Learning Object. Recall that this is simply the outline (instructional content,

practice, assessment) of a single learning objective.

• Write out your learning objective. What do you want the students to learn in this lesson?

• Decide how you will deliver the instructional content (video, podcast, reading, website, DVD, audio, etc.)

• Decide how you will assess that the instructional content has been viewed, read, or completed. Will you use a short quiz or ask students to complete a reading journal? Keep the assessment short. You are only assessing whether or not they did what you asked of them.

• Plan an in-class learning activity that supports the learning objective. This can be a complex project or as simple as students working in groups or individually on strategies.

• In class, circulate among students offering feedback and assistance. Encourage students to work together to solve complex problems.

• Wrap up the learning experience by having the students reflect on the lesson as a whole.

Creating Instructional Content • Make your own• Access thousands of learning tutorial videos already available. • Power Point: slideshows, screencasts• Learning Object Repositories• Video (You Tube, School Tube, Camtasia)• Screencasts (Sophia, Camtasia, Screen-o-matic)• Podcasts (Voice Thread, Podomatic)• Link to videos or screencasts directly within your Moodle or

Blackboard site by embedding video code or providing the link to your video.

Screencasts• Since most teachers

use Power Points in the classroom, this a great way to go.

• Simply pull up your Power Point and go through it delivering your lecture as you would in class.

• http://www.sophia.org/playlists/main-ideas

•Don’t worry about um’s and other missteps; these you have in your normal classroom delivery anyway, and they actually let your personality show through. •My students say they like the lectures with me just talking normally rather than the videos that are monotone.

Moodle

• Our college uses the Moodle learning platform, and you can upload videos right into Moodle or host your videos at YouTube or Sophia (more on Sophia later).

• The students are already required to go online to complete half of the class (in a hybrid) or all of the class (fully online), so flipped learning works very well.

• Courses that are taught completely offline are also good venues for flipped learning as educators are encouraged more and more to use technology in the classroom.

• With just about everyone having a smartphone these days, the majority of students have no problem accessing the Internet and YouTube on their phones.

Embed Your Video in Moodle

Sophia.org• Sophia.org is an online learning community that allows you to

create tutorials (learning objects) in all kinds of formats. A typical Sophia tutorial will include a screencast lecture (ppt with audio), a handout (pdf or word), a short lesson (use Google Forms or just directions to complete an assignment), and a quiz. Sophia allows you to create a quiz right in the tutorial.

• Sophia also has a free screencast program, so you can record a screencast directly from Sophia and it will be hosted there for free. I use a program called SnagIt to record screencasts and then I can upload my screencast other places as well. SnagIt is only $29.99 for educators and has a lot of other really cool tools.

Sample Tutorials

• http://www.sophia.org/propaganda--2-tutorial?playlist=critical-reading

• http://www.sophia.org/narrative-structure-writing-a-narrative-tutorial?playlist=patterns-of-organization-in-writing

• http://www.sophia.org/playlists/main-ideas

Providing an Assessment

You can check for completion of the tutorial ‘homework’ by letting students know they will have a quiz the next dayasking them to try out two or three of the problems they learned in the tutorialtelling them to write a journal about the lessonasking them to list a minimum of questions/comments concerning what they viewed

Common Arguments Against Flipping

• At this point, you probably have some questions and concerns about this technique, so let’s take a moment to brainstorm what you think some common arguments are.

This is too much like homework; students won’t do it.

• You are introducing a learning strategy to students that they may not be familiar with. Be patient. If they insist on calling the ‘preview’ homework, let them. Some students (and teachers) find it easier to think of it this way in the beginning.

For instance, “Watch this video on YouTube and write down at least three comments or questions regarding the video. Come to class tomorrow with your comments/questions prepared to discuss the video.”

• Sound like homework? Sure it does. No matter. Let’s call it ‘new’ homework. After a time, students will realize that the boring lectures are disappearing, class time is more interactive, and the actual application of the material is happening IN the classroom rather than at home.

A lecture on video is just as boring to a student as a classroom lecture.

• All lectures have the potential of being boring, whether in class or online. It is the personality and creativity of the educator that gets the student’s attention.

• Most colleges already use a learning platform like Moodle or Blackboard. Your instructional content can be a Power Point presentation rather than a video. You can upload your PPT directly into most learning platforms or you can save it at SlideShare.com.

• Teachers report that “faster-paced students were less bored and frustrated with the pacing of the whole class. Slower-paced students felt like they had control over the lesson and were less confused and frustrated.”

http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-flips-flop.html

Some students don’t have access to technology.

• Not every tutorial is going to entail intensive technology. There are many different ways to present the lecture, just as there are many different ways of delivering on-campus instruction.

• Almost all students have cell phones that they can access YouTube with or they can use the computer lab on campus.

• You can count on there being at least one student who has a technology issue. Decide ahead of time how you will deal with that issue. Perhaps offer the student the option to view a DVD or give them a flash drive that has the tutorial on it.

• If all else fails, that student can be given a transcript of the video to read, but strive to make them responsible for the original assignment.

Students are not going to do the work before class.

• You will probably have some who won’t do the work, as always. But when they come to class and other students are jumping into the project or the hands-on activity of the day, they are going to wish they had watched that short video or whatever other tutorial activity you assigned. It only takes one or two times before students realize they are missing out.

• I hear you saying, “Well, some students won’t care about that.” True; but that is true with the traditional lecture as well. You need to be prepared to step in and lead these students during class. Do not just let them sit there clueless. Send them to the side of the room and make them watch the video, look up the website, whatever your lesson was, and then allow them to jump into the class activity.

• Take a few moments to brainstorm with members in your department.

• What lesson that you normally teach do you think would work well as a flipped lesson?

• What format would you use? Screencast? Video?• How would you assess that the student watched the

‘homework’?• How would you handle students who did not do the

‘homework’?

Your Flipped Lesson

Bibliography

• Bruff, D. (2012, September 15). The Flipped Classroom FAQ. Retrieved March 4, 2013, from Center for the Integration of Tresearch, Teaching and Learning Network (CIRTL): http://www.cirtl.net/node/7788

• White, R. (2012, June 30). How to Flip Your Classroom. Retrieved March 4, 2013, from Hybrid Classroom: http://hybridclassroom.com/blog/?p=819

• Flipped Learning. Retrieved March 2, 2013. http://flipped-learning.com/?p=1073#more-1073

• The Innovative Educator. Retrieved March 1, 2013. http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-flips-flop.html

ResourcesEducating the Net Generation http://www.educause.edu/Educatingthe NetGeneration/5989

Learning Object RepositoriesNWMSU Center for Information Technology in Education (http://cite.nwmissouri.edu/nworc/)MERLOT (http://www.merlot.org)Wisc-Online Learning Object Repository (http://www.wisc-online.com)Campus Alberta Repository of Educational Objects (http://www.careo.org)EOE (http://www.eoe.org)NMC Listing of Repositories (http://www.nmc.org/projects/lo/repositories.shtml)ExploreLearning Gizmos (http://www.explorelearning.com)Sophia http://www.sophia.org/

Screencast and Video Creation and HostingSnagIt http://www.techsmith.com/snagit-customer-stories.html Sophia http://www.sophia.org/ YouTube http://www.youtube.com/ Camtasia http://www.techsmith.com