Re-thinking My Teaching: A Midpoint Assessment

Guest Blogger:  David Royer

Last week, Dr. Kwame posed the question “Have you flipped your classroom?” which is a great lead-in to my blog because I am in the process of doing that for my General Biology II course, and while I have not completely flipped it, I have certainly rearranged it. It began when I attended a workshop last summer at NYU titled "Evidence-Based Teaching: Just the Facts or Thinking Like Scientists?"  Diane Ebert-May, the workshop leader, is from Michigan State where she uses active learning, inquiry-based instructional strategies to teach introductory biology to classes of 200 students. She does very little traditional lecture in her classes, instead relying on having the students work in groups to solve problems during class time after which the groups present their results, often using poster paper taped to the classroom walls, which is followed by whole class discussion. She describes what she does as teaching biology using the same methods that biologists use to conduct research so that students can develop higher-level cognitive skills and build conceptual connections within biology and across the curriculum. Another aspect of her work is to use a backward design to construct courses in which objectives, assessments and instruction are aligned. Diane conducted the workshop in the same way she does her classes – we worked in groups discussing educational issues followed by presentation of results and general discussion. 

I came away from the workshop enthused and ready to plunge into my sabbatical semester, the purpose of which was to redesign my General Biology II course in a way that promoted active learning on the part of the students and less lecture from me. My reason for applying for sabbatical was to explore alternative methods and design of instruction; over the past several years, I realized that, while I enjoyed delivering lectures, it was not producing enough positive results in student learning and problem-solving skills. From what I read during my sabbatical, it appears that many faculty are experiencing the same misgivings about the way that we teach. So I spent most of my sabbatical redesigning the way I would teach my course, and now that we are approaching the halfway point of the semester, I have some results to share: 

1. The students are more engaged working in groups. While I still need to occasionally remind a student to put the cell phone away, the students are working well in groups and staying on task. 
2. The students are helping each other. As I circulate through the classroom, I can hear students explaining concepts and methods to each other, and sometimes explaining it in better terms that I would use, a humbling but exciting realization. 
3. There have been positive results in student performance. Compared to last spring when I taught the course with traditional lecture methods, the average on the first quiz was nine points higher this semester as was the average on the first exam by six points. 
4. It is easy to fall back into old habits. One student group had a question recently that required more explanation than a short answer, and as I thought the entire class would benefit from the answer, I threw up a PowerPoint to illustrate the explanation – the result was that I lectured for 15 minutes and it felt completely comfortable like a pair of old slippers that fit perfectly after years of wear. 
5. Some material is challenging in terms of developing meaningful group assignments. The first part of the course covers genetics at the level of organisms, and it was easy to come up with genetics problems for the student groups. Now that we are moving into molecular genetics, the material is more challenging as is coming up with group assignments. I am beginning to feel the need to lecture, but resisting it so far. 
6. It is okay to occasionally throw in a mini-lecture (10-15 minutes) when needed. Sometimes there is a topic that requires explanation that is best delivered in lecture mode, but even then it can be interactive, forcing the students to be involved. 
7. It takes much preparation to design good group assignments and the overall flow of the class. My biggest error so far is planning too much for each class which then requires the redesign of subsequent classes. 
8. Most importantly, the students seem to enjoy the new design. I overheard one student say that she felt that she was learning more with this format, and the early assessment results support her statement. 
9. I am getting to know the students better. There is more interaction with the students using the new format, and I feel that I am more aware of each student’s strengths and weaknesses compared to when I taught this course with just lectures. 

I am excited about what I am doing as well as challenged by it. I now realize that the transition to newer methods is not a one-semester job; it is ongoing, and I will probably never be completely satisfied with the methods or results, but it does feel that I am headed in the right direction. I have not completely flipped (the classroom, of course) yet, but I am pleased with the experience so far.

Have You Flipped Your Classroom Yet?

Guest Blogger: Safro Kwame

Have you flipped your classroom or, rather, class – not physically, by rearranging the furniture, but conceptually -- yet? If not, why not; if you have, what are the results? I would like to know.

Here are some news reports on the flipped classroom:

Flipped Classrooms Provide a New Way of Learning, by Dean Reynolds, CBS News, January 19, 2014

There’s a new way for school kids to do their homework -- and perhaps, a ray of hope for the parents who frequently get called on to help. Check out the flipped classroom. At Warren Township High School in Gurnee, Ill, science teacher Collin Black helps kids do homework in class and sends his lectures home. Black and others who've embraced what's called the flipped classroom condense their lectures into a brief, homemade and often light-hearted video.  Students can digest the information outside of class whenever they like. The next day, they get their questions answered and apply the lesson with the teacher in the room. Educator Jon Bergmann, along with partner Aaron Sams, came up with the flipped classroom concept. It was originally designed for football players who missed class while on the road. Three percent of teachers are flipping classrooms now, 18 percent have expressed interest and 28 percent of school administrations want to do it, according to Project Tomorrow, a national education nonprofit group. (read more...)

The Condensed Classroom:"Flipped" classrooms don't invert traditional learning so much as abstract it, by Ian Bogost, The Atlantic Monthly, August 27, 2013

 This year, more university students and professors will encounter a trend that has come to be known as "flipping the classroom." It's been largely associated with massive open online courses (MOOCs), that edu-tech vogue committed to delivering classes to large numbers of students all at once via video lectures and automated assessments conducted over the Internet. (read more ...)

Turning Education Upside Down, by Tina Rosenberg, The New York Times, October 9, 2013

Three years ago, Clintondale High School, just north of Detroit, became a “flipped school” — one where students watch teachers’ lectures at home and do what we’d otherwise call “homework” in class. Teachers record video lessons, which students watch on their smartphones, home computers or at lunch in the school’s tech lab. In class, they do projects, exercises or lab experiments in small groups while the teacher circulates. Clintondale was the first school in the United States to flip completely — all of its classes are now taught this way. Now flipped classrooms are popping up all over.  (read more...)

Flipped Schools:Homework At School, Lectures At Home, by Tom Ashbrook, On Point, NPR, November 5, 2013

Some teachers, even whole schools, are now “flipping” their days — doing homework in class, watching lectures at home. Is this the future of school? (read more...)

More Teachers 'Flipping' The School Day Upside Down, by Grace Hood, NPR, All Things Considered, December 7, 2012,

Welcome to the 21st century classroom: a world where students watch lectures at home — and do homework at school. It's called classroom flipping, and it's slowly catching on in schools around the country. (read more...)

Using Groups to Introduce Black History and Reading in the Classroom

Guest Blogger:  Jean Waites-Howard

Last fall I taught Social Policy.  I always want to introduce relevant Black Historical events that impact on Social Policy. I had recently learned about The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. This is a very long text which chronicles the Great Migration from the South to the North from 1915 to 1970. The book focuses on the adventures and trials of three migrants: Ida Mae Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster.  The book includes individuals and families seeking a “better life,” as well as those who played a major role in the transformation of America’s landscape. I really wanted the students to have an opportunity to read this well-documented, informative report of our history.

My Social Policy class was very large (37 students). I divided them into six groups. I divided the text into six sections. Each group was to read their section and respond to seven questions about the text. The students had to prepare PowerPoints for their group presentation and a two-page summary.

The student presentations were excellent. The students shared equally in the presentations. They worked together and really covered their assigned material. Several students encouraged me to use this book again for this course. Leaving the “Jim Crow South” and confronting racism in Chicago was eye opening for our students.

For instance, Ida Mae Gladney had attended a neighborhood watch meeting in Chicago where she had the opportunity to hear a young state senator named Barack Obama.  That led to the question of what the impact of the Great Migration was on Obama’s presidency. The students could connect this history with current events, as they could the fact that “the first black mayors in each of the major receiving cities of the North and the West were not longtime native blacks but participants of sons of the Great Migration.” (p. 529, The Warmth of Other Suns)

Group projects can reinforce learning and build our students’ skills. This is a creative manner to introduce important subject matter.