Recently, I noticed a blog post on the flipped classroom that frustrated me. (For those who need a refresher on flipped classrooms, click here). The author is an academic whose comments I normally agree with; I’m guessing we share many of the same political, social, and even pedagogical values. But I have a really hard time understanding why innovations like this one draw such fiery opposition. I have an even harder time seeing the connection between flipped classrooms and “privilege,” given that our most under-served students benefit most from innovative teaching and are least served by the traditional lecture model.
I’ll be candid here: My college is primarily a teaching college, and my colleagues and I tend to embrace non-traditional approaches. If you’ve taught at a community college (or, really, if you’ve taught any students anywhere), you probably know that delivering old-school lectures isn’t a guarantee that students are actually learning. You also probably know that student learning and student participation go hand in hand. If students aren’t saying much in class, they probably aren’t engaging the material.
I’ve never taught a course through a completely “flipped” approach, though I probably will do so soon. But I am truly baffled by the impulse to dismiss it out-of-hand, and I am hoping some of our readers can enlighten me. My questions are:
1) Have you used this method, and was it effective?
2) What is the root of resistance to such an approach?
3) Is the lecture-focused approach to teaching history still common in academia? (I’m guilty of assuming we’d moved on, but judging from the post I cited above, it may be more common than I realized)
I’ll hang up and listen.
I am teaching my first semester on ground at a community college. It is my second semester of also teaching online. I can look at the faces of the students while I lecture and see the total lack of interest. As a result, I changed most of my classroom around. I broke up the lectures into small sequences with the students placed into groups for interaction at the end of the sequences where they have to answer questions and instruct the class on them. The difference is night and day. The lectures are still the same materials being covered. It is just now they are anticipating the participation part. I also am incorporating a few short films that have a direct connection to the course so they can have a break in the lecture/answer/lecture/answer/test routine.
One thing I’ve figured out is that anything introduced into the classroom has to have a direct connection to an individual or group experience that involves utilizing the thinking process in a dynamic way. If I leave it to them for taking notes and assessing what they learned without any form of actual participation they generally have problems. The good students do well no matter what, but the marginal students really have problems without the participation element. The good thing is that my A students are actually gaining additional skills as leaders due to this format. I think I’ve upped the game for them as a result and they are responding in a positive manner.
I am seriously considering a flipped classroom. I teach a ELA/Reading/History block to 8th graders with only 2 class periods to teach the three subjects. I’m considering making short readings homework each evening for History so that class time can be spent interacting with students and having rich conversations about what our history means to them/us. It’s March and I’m thinking of making a drastic change. Yes, yes, I am nuts.