http://www.flipteaching.com/files/0e82357541a89a8888c1a7c498c1c201-4.php#unique-entry-id-4

The author has been experimenting with flip teaching for 5 years. Here is a good excerpt:

“While class-time was opened up for student problem-solving, and the video responses and reflections were amplified via the use of a google form as a tracking device, students seemed to be passively learning the material, at best. For all the benefits of flip teaching with respect to class-time, I now realize the HUGE negative was not flip teaching as a pedagogy, but simply the order of learning activities. Students come to my class with a rich and diverse prior knowledge, derived form 17 years of living “in” the subject. In the previous model, while my focus was on using class-time effectively, I failed at giving my students an opportunity to access their prior knowledge, tackle their misconceptions actively, and work to construct their own meaning FIRST. Derek Muller explains this extremely well in his video Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos.

To address this issue, my first step was to RE-ORDER the way my class is structured and give students an opportunity to construct their own ideas and models BEFORE learning anything directly from me.”

In my flipped class, I ask the students to (i) do the reading, then (ii) watch the video lecture (which concentrates on problem-solving), then (iii) solve two mid-level computational problems (chosen so they must do the reading to solve them) using the online homework system, and then (iv) submit a question to me online about something that was unclear from the reading and/or the video lecture.

When we meet in class, the first thing I do is to discuss the answers to a selection of the students’ questions. They come up with some great ones! The rest of the “lecture” period is spent on clicker questions, worksheets, and physics demonstrations (with a clicker question before each demo in which the students are asked to predict the outcome of the experiment).

As an aside, my classes are 75 minutes long, so always stop in the middle for a couple of minutes of physical exercise. I have them do the same exercises that are suitable for airline passengers sitting in coach, which is comparable to sitting in a lecture hall: http://www.cnngo.com/sydney/visit/plane-yoga-18-exercises-healthy-flying-910157?page=0,0

*Very* interesting finding regarding the computational questions, quite counter-intuitive. So, you’re suggesting that perhaps we want to give students concrete exercises first, almost as a scaffolding tool, to help them understand the reading, before we move to conceptual exercises?

Andrew, I’m afraid that your question is outside of my expertise. If you find something, please let us know. Best of luck!

Stephanie

I’m a fan of the pre-class reading quiz, useful for just-in-time teaching as you mentioned. Just yesterday I finished a draft of a paper on this topic, drawing on my 2006-07 study of pre-class reading quizzes, seen here in a non-peer-reviewed form: http://contentbuilder.merlot.org/toolkit/html/snapshot.php?id=81181051005778. I tried to figure out what kinds of pre-class reading quiz questions helped students get more out of the reading. The result surprised me: more computational questions led to better student performance on in-class quizzes than conceptual pre-class reading questions. I believe that’s because students learn best when they move from the concrete (like a computational exercise) to the abstract (like a conceptual question).

Thanks again for the post! Lots of great ideas and resources here.