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Turning Learning Upside Down: A Flipped Classroom Approach

Flipped Classroom style lessons are a growing trend in higher education. Many instructors focus on the pre-class recordings, putting little thought into why to use this strategy or how to plan and design the lesson. This project will focus on developing the following student capabilities (these ideas may be changed throughout the process):

• Describe a flipped classroom approach
• List the advantages of using flipped learning
• Select appropriate content for flipped learning
• Identify characteristics of an engaging pre-class assignment
• Integrate higher order learning activities during class time
• Design a lesson using a flipped classroom approach

Needs Assessment

Step 1: Describe your Intent

Instructional Problem: With technological advances in society, such as the internet, social media, and mobile devices; the way students process information has changed. “Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” (Prensky, 2001) Learners are now constantly engaged in actively searching for, filtering, composing, and sharing information. Traditional lectures involve instructors speaking about the content throughout a class period. This style is less effective with the current generation of students. Yet many instructors have been trained in this traditional model, and are not equipped with the knowledge or skills to change their teaching style, to accommodate the need for greater student engagement, active learning strategies, and learner centered environments.

Nature of Learning: Flipped Classroom is an approach that allows instructors to take advantage of new technologies that enable media rich, interactive, pre-class lectures. With the "lecture" moved to before class, class time is restructured to provide opportunities for students to practice skills and apply information. Instructors (students of this mini course) will learn:

• Basic format of flipped classroom (verbal information)
• Advantages of using this format (attitudes)
• How to select appropriate content (intellectual skills)
• Techniques to engage students in pre-class lectures (intellectual skills)
• Techniques to engage and support learning during in class activities (intellectual skills)

Step 2: Gather Information

Learner Analysis: The learners for this course will most likely be faculty in higher education, who have attained a masters degree or Ph.D. Many of the learners may have little training or knowledge about pedagogy. Affective factors include intrinsic motivation to become more effective teachers, extrinsic motivation to achieve higher student scores and better course evaluations, and potentially both positive and negative attitudes to this strategy. Some learners may feel eager to learn more about flipped learning, while others may be skeptical and reluctant to learn or try this. I anticipate learning styles to be varied among the faculty. Prerequisite knowledge and skills include:

• Knowledge of traditional lecture format
• Familiarity with utilizing current instructional technology (internet, screen casting, video)
• Basic understanding of constructivism

Context Analysis: This mini course will be conducted online as a self paced module. The format of the course will include instructional video, media, activities, collaboration with peers, and reflection.

Instructional Solution: This mini course will help higher education instructors to learn the flipped classroom strategy in order to better engage their students.

Step 3: Identify Goals

Goals:

• Educate learners about flipped learning
• Motivate learners to try the flipped classroom approach
• Educate learners about features of flipped learning that can engage students and facilitate effective learning
• Deliver lesson in a similar format to a flipped classroom

Performance Objectives

1. When asked to explain a flipped classroom model, the learner classifies the flipped classroom approach by writing a definition that includes the necessary components.

1. 1. When asked “Why should you use a flipped classroom model?”, the learner will state the advantages of utilizing a flipped classroom by composing a written list of at least three beneficial characteristics.

1. 1. 1. Given a set of lessons, the learner will demonstrate selecting appropriate content by choosing a lesson from their teaching experience.

1. When asked to try a new teaching method, the learner will choose to implement a flipped classroom lesson in their teaching.

1. When asked to flip a classroom, the learner will generate a flipped classroom style lesson by designing and developing a pre-class lecture and in class activity.

References and Resources

Prensky, Marc. "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1." On the Horizon 9.5 (2001): 1 - 6. Online.

Khan, Salman. “Let's use video to reinvent education.” March 2011. TED. Online Video Clip. 6 October 2012.