Flip Got Game

I'm still getting some good stuff out of Eric Mazur's thoughts about the flipped classroom. The Twilight of the Lecture article says:

Mazur’s reinvention of the course drops the lecture model and deeply engages students in the learning/teaching endeavor. … Thus Mazur … asks students to think the problem through and commit to an answer, which each records using a handheld device (smartphones work fine), and which a central computer statistically compiles, without displaying the overall tally.

I like this particular technique, and I intend to use it in my classes, starting next week, so get ready, Scholars. A good game is coming.

More Flip, Even Flippant

I like another quote from the Harvard Magazine article about Eric Mazur's change in teaching style:

Taking active learning seriously means revamping the entire teaching/learning enterprise—even turning it inside out or upside down. For example, active learning overthrows the “transfer of information” model of instruction, which casts the student as a dry sponge who passively absorbs facts and ideas from a teacher. This model has ruled higher education for 600 years, since the days of the medieval Schoolmen who, in their lectio mode, stood before a room reading a book aloud to the assembly—no questions permitted. The modern version is the lecture. 

Though it remains the dominant form of instruction in higher education and can sometimes become a real art form, the lecture may be on its last legs. “The hands-on interactive experience in a lab or an art studio is more powerful than a lecture, and can’t be replicated online,” says Logan McCarty, director of physical sciences education. “The stereotypical lecture where the professor is giving exposition of textbook-type material to the students—I think that type of exposition can be done better with online video or by an interactive-tutorial format.” Today at Harvard, many courses distribute lecture notes, and others post video recordings of lectures online. After hearing about Mazur’s approach to teaching, Weatherhead University Professor Gary King, a government scholar, started to make recorded lectures available before class, thus freeing class time for more active styles of instruction.

"Revamping the entire teaching/learning enterprise—even turning it inside out or upside down" is what flipped learning is all about. Some people believe that flipping the classroom moves the entire educational process onto the Internet and basically does away with the need for a face-to-face (f2f) classroom or teacher, but this is a big mistake. The flipped classroom does not do away with f2f learning; rather, it frees up f2f learning from the onerous burden of merely transferring information from teacher to student. And I say good riddance.

Some people also seem to believe that the flipped classroom might work for some topics, but not for composition. I think that composition is one of the ideal topics for a flipped class. In many respects, learning to write is similar to learning to paint a landscape or learning to play a piano. Very little knowledge about painting or playing can be communicated by lecture. One learns to paint by painting, to play by playing, and to write by writing. Only after one has some sense of painting, playing, or writing can one make sense of spoken instructions from a teacher.

For instance, I could do a lecture about how to format references in APA style, demonstrating various points on the board or in a PowerPoint, students could take notes before going home to try out the new information. My experience tells me that few students will learn much this way. Rather, I give students an online lecture about APA references, and then in class, the students help each other construct some references in APA style. My experience shows that they learn better by doing than by taking notes. And they do better in groups than alone. That's a flipped classroom.

The Flipped Classroom

I have used a flipped classroom for the past three years, and I'm convinced of its efficacy, but not everyone is, especially not all of my students. Most leave my class fairly enthusiastic about the flipped classroom approach, but not all. I must do better, then, to help them understand it. You'd think this wouldn't be so difficult, as the concept is really rather simple: rather than delivering information locally (usually through classroom lectures) and then practicing it remotely (usually through homework), the flipped classroom delivers information remotely (through online lectures, readings, and exercises) and then practices it locally.

That's the flipped classroom in a nutshell: deliver information remotely, practice it locally. It seems easy, but after 12-15 years of learning in the old, traditional way, many students and teachers are uncomfortable with a flipped classroom.

Still, the movement toward flipped classrooms is growing. A Harvard Magazine article entitled Twilight of the Lecture talks about why Harvard physicist and Dean Eric Mazur has flipped his classroom:

[Mazur] asserts that he is “far more interested in learning than teaching,” and envisions a shift from “teaching” to “helping students learn.” The focus moves away from the lectern and toward the physical and imaginative activity of each student in class. Interactive pedagogy, for example, turns passive, note-taking students into active, de facto teachers who explain their ideas to each other and contend for their points of view. (“The person who learns the most in any classroom,” Mazur declares, “is the teacher.”) Thousands of research studies on learning indicate that “active learning is really at a premium. It’s the most effective thing,” says Terry Aladjem, executive director of the Bok Center and lecturer on social studies. “That means focusing on what students actually do in the classroom, or in some other learning environment. From cognitive science, we hear that learning is a process of moving information from short-term to long-term memory; assessment research has proven that active learning does that best.” Active learners take new information and apply it, rather than merely taking note of it. Firsthand use of new material develops personal ownership. When subject matter connects directly with students’ experiences, projects, and goals, they care more about the material they seek to master.

Mazur, I think, captures the heart of the revolution: shifting focus away from what the teacher knows (or doesn't know) and toward what the student is learning. Now, clearly Mazur knows physics, but that isn't the point of education. His students need to know physics, and like me, Mazur has already proven to himself that standing in front of the class and talking does NOT transfer knowledge to students. It can transfer a bit of information, but not real knowledge. It often doesn't even transfer information. I can tell my classes to do a simple task such as title a document in a particular way, and even write it on the board for them, and way too many still get it wrong. My students are not dense or even inattentive; rather, the lecture process is poor at transferring knowledge from my head to theirs.

So the flipped classroom reverses all of this, turning the focus of the class away from the teacher and toward the student. Unfortunately, lots of students don't like that focus. They prefer to sit anonymously in the back of the room pretending to take notes while the professor rattles on and on. The flipped classroom really messes with that kind of learning strategy.