Maree Michaud-Sacks Portfolio Page

Navigate to: ETAP 623 Fall 2012 Home | Maree's Personal Page | Maree's Mini Course

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. Learners are now used to actively searching for, filtering, and composing information. Traditional lectures styles, which involve instructors speaking through the content throughout a class period, are becoming less effective with the current generation of students. Many instructors have been trained in this traditional model, and are not equipped with the knowledge or skills to change their teaching style, in order to increase student engagement and create an active, learner centered environment.

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

• Basic format of flipped classroom
• Advantages of using this format
• How to select appropriate content
• Techniques to engage students in pre-class lectures
• Techniques to engage and support learning during in class activities

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 facilitate higher student scores and better course evaluations, and 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

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.