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Can Flipped Classrooms Help Students Learn?

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Can Flipped Classrooms Help Students Learn?

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In the article,

"Can Flipped Classrooms Help Students Learn?", published in April 25, 2014 by Nancy Lape, Rachel Levy and Darryl Yong, they point out what a flipped classroom can do for both the teacher and students. Lape, Levy and Yong does this by implementing logos and research from professors. Ultimately, they are suggesting the reader to be encouraged by the improvements you can achieve in a flipped classroom.

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Photo by Wavebreakmedia Ltd/Thinkstock

This article is part of Future Tense, which is a partnership of , the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University. On Wednesday, April 30, Future Tense will host an event in Washington, D.C., on technology and the future of higher education. For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America Foundation website.
Does a flipped or inverted class sound to you like an ad for yoga? Even if you have not had the opportunity to attend or teach a flipped course, you have likely seen a recent article about this teaching technique in the press. A common question is whether flipped classrooms are the answer to many educational problems or just a fad.

As college professors who have been conducting a study on flipped classrooms for the past two years (supported in part by a National Science Foundation grant), we'd like to suggest a perspective on this type of research. Rather than ask whether flipped classrooms are "good" or "bad," we should seek to understand the conditions and context under which flipped classrooms actually improve learning.

First, what is a flipped or inverted classroom? You can find a wide range of definitions, but typically an instructor "flips" by replacing lectures with more active forms of student engagement in the classroom-students watch video lectures outside of class. This mode of instruction is not so different from the kind of instruction people in the humanities have using for years: read/watch materials outside of class and then discuss ideas in class.

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While the three of us were satisfied with our interactive, lecture-driven courses, we started studying flipped classrooms to explore ways we could use class time (when students and instructor are in the same space simultaneously) to the best advantage. Flipping allows students to engage in hands-on activities, discussions, writing exercises, or other tasks. Their instructor can assess whether students are learning by watching them engage in tasks that make use of what they have supposedly absorbed.

We set out to measure whether students would learn more in flipped classrooms than in our usual interactive lecture courses. We are in the middle of a multiyear study across three disciplines (chemistry, engineering, and mathematics), and our preliminary study results have not shown any appreciable differences in student learning between traditional and flipped courses. But even if our longer study shows the same result, it doesn't mean that flipped classrooms would necessarily be good, bad, or neutral in other situations. To understand the results of an educational study, it's important to pay attention to the learning environment.

Harvey Mudd College, where we all teach, is unlike many other colleges and universities-it's a residential school of about 800 undergraduates with a healthy culture of cooperation. Students spend a lot of time in groups working together both in and out of classes. They generally have confidence in their skills and ability to learn, and have positive attitudes about learning science and mathematics. HMC faculty already use innovative teaching techniques to engage students in meaningful ways. Any of these factors could mitigate some anticipated positive effects of classroom inversion. (In addition to these contextual factors, there are other aspects of our study that might explain why we haven't yet seen any student learning differences.)

It could be a different story in another environment. For instance, say you attend a college whose students mostly have full-time jobs, live far from campus, and don't have time or proximity to engage in group work outside of class. A flipped class might increase your opportunities for group interaction, which could not only improve your learning but also provide experience working in teams. If you have difficulty focusing during long lectures, you might enjoy having the chance to rewind parts of a video and spending class time discussing ideas with your peers. On the other hand, if you are a person who needs plenty of quiet processing time before you begin a task with other learners, you may find the flipped classroom scene challenging. (Of course, students can also benefit from moving out of their comfort zones and developing new skills.)

Should every classroom be flipped? Most teachers would happily (if not easily) stand on their heads if it would help their students learn. But schools should not mandate flipped classrooms, or any other educational trend, just to be on the cutting edge. Rather, they should encourage innovation and give instructors freedom and resources to experiment with different teaching strategies. We need more educational research to examine different modes of instruction, the effects these instructional methods have on students, and the contexts in which the instruction takes place. Research results can inform and improve teaching practices. But we must be careful not to overgeneralize or oversimplify the results of these studies. Just as no flavor of yoga will suit everyone, no universal solution will improve learning for all students in every situation.

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Can Flipped Classrooms Help Students Learn? We're Trying to Find Out.

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This article is part of Future Tense, which is a partnership of , the New America Foundation , and Arizona State University . On Wednesday, April 30, Future Tense will host an event in Washington, D.C., on technology and the future of higher education.

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In the article, "Flipped Classroom: Beyond the Videos", published in April 30, 2012 by Catlin Tucker, she suggests to take advantage of the contents that are given. Tucker does this by giving information on things you are able to use in a flipped classroom. Ultimately, they are informing the reader what you can do when you're missing material for a flipped classroom.

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Last week, I read an interesting blog post by Shelley Blake-Plock titled "The Problem with TED ed." It got me thinking about the flipped classroom model and how it is being defined.

As a blended learning enthusiast, I have played with the flipped classroom model, seen presentations by inspiring educators who flip their classrooms, and even have a chapter dedicated to this topic in . However, I am disheartened to hear so many people describe the flipped classroom as a model where teachers record videos or podcasts for students to view at home.

There are many teachers who do not want to record videos either because they don't have the necessary skills or equipment, their classes don't include a lot of lecture that can be captured in recordings, or they are camera shy.

Too often the conversation surrounding the flipped classroom focuses on the videos- creating them, hosting them, and assessing student understanding of the content via simple questions or summary assignments.

I wish the conversation focused more on what actually happens in a flipped classroom. If we move lecture or the transfer of knowledge online to create time and space in the physical classroom, how are we using that time to improve learning for students? What is our role as the teacher in the flipped classroom? How are we maximizing the potential of the group when students are together to design collaborative, creative, student-centered activities and assignments? This is the part I want to hear more about!

For me, the beauty of the flipped classroom lies in the simple realization that instruction can take place in different mediums. We are no longer limited to a class period or a physical classroom. We have the opportunity to match the instructional activity with the environment that makes the most sense. Ramsey Musallam, defines "flip teaching" as "leveraging technology to appropriately pair the learning activity with the learning environment." This flexibility is why technology has the potential to be so transformative in education.

The goal of the flipped classroom should be to shift lessons from "consumables" to "produceables." (Okay, I realize I just made that word up, but I hope my meaning is clear.) Students today must be generators and producers. They must be able to question, problem solve, think outside of the box, and create innovative solutions to be competitive and successful in our rapidly changing global economy.

Blake-Plock makes a strong point when he says we learn by "doing." He points out that many of the lessons students are given are "consumables" and this is my concern about the current language being used to describe the flipped classroom. Too often the flipped classroom requires students to watch videos, which is passive learning, but what are they asked to do with this information?

Often the homework described in the flipped classroom model only engages the lower level thinking skills described in Bloom's Taxonomy - remembering and understanding. The application, analysis, evaluation and creation are rarely engaged at home. There is an opportunity to get students thinking at a higher level at home if we pair content with extension activities that require that they think critically about what they have viewed. The important element is to connect students online outside of class so they have a support network of peers to ask questions, bounce ideas around with and learn from. This is why I am such a big supporter of integrating online discussions into the traditional curriculum.

In my presentations on the flipped classroom, I've advocated for 3 things that I think would make this model more appealing to most of educators:

1. Take advantage of the ready-to-use content available. There is so much ready-to-use content on the web that teachers shouldn't feel pressure produce videos (unless they want to or it works for their subject area). Let's use what is out there and save time when we can.

I hate to limit the potential of the flipped model by telling teachers they have to record their own video lectures. Instead, I encourage teachers to flip all kinds of ready-to-use media.

These are sites are great resources for media ranging from documentaries, interviews, demonstrations, tutorials, primary/secondary sources, articles, biographies, photography, graphs, artwork, etc.

If you are wondering...can I really flip my class with photos or images? I say yes. If students have time to really sit and appreciate the nuances of an image or graph and think deeply about the details, they will get much more from that then if it is projected for 3 minutes as a teacher talks. There is not time in class for students to control the pace of their learning. This is a clear advantage of moving information that needs to be "consumed" online.

For example, consider the example below that presents a painting, then asks students to analyze the different aspects of the painting to select the art movement they think it was produced during. Students have time to evaluate the various elements of the painting then articulate an explanation supporting their position. They also benefit from reading what their peers have said.

* This topic is available in the Collaborize Classroom topic library, click here to view.

2. Don't just show them. Make them do something with that information that requires higher- order thinking. I encourage teachers to wrap the content presented at home in dynamic online discussions, debates, and/or collaborative group work. This way students must think critically about the content, engage with their peers, and produce something (an argument, a clear analytical explanation, formulate questions, synthesize information from multiple sources, etc.).

I agree with Blake-Plock's assertion that "It is perfectly fine to watch a video. It is perfectly fine to view a lecture. It is perfectly fine to quiz yourself on what you remember from the video or the lecture. It is perfectly fine to write a brief response about a big question. But let's not call that a lesson. That's just a starting point. Lessons come from doing." So why not pair the content with an activity that gets them "doing" then imagine where you could start the actual class activity?

For example, consider the debate question below. Students are asked to view a Khan Academy tutorial then debate whether or not they think Napoleon could have successfully won the Peninsular Campaign. This forces students to think critically about what they have watched, articulate a position and support that position with information and analysis.

* This topic is available in the Collaborize Classroom topic library, click here to view.

3. Use the flipped model to create a student-centered classroom. Focus class time on getting students practicing where there is a subject area expert in the room. Get students actively engaging in the learning process. Do more:

The class period has the potential to shift from a space where students are passive observers and consumers in the learning process to a space where they're actively engaged in a dynamic learning community.

I'd love for other educators to share the innovative things they are doing inside their flipped classrooms! How are you using your class time to build on content presented at home?

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Last week, I read an interesting blog post by Shelley Blake-Plock titled 'The Problem with TED ed.' It got me thinking about the flipped classroom model and how it is being defined. As a blended learning enthusiast, I have played with the

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Research Says / Evidence on Flipped Classrooms Is Still Coming In

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Research Says / Evidence on Flipped Classrooms Is Still Coming In

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In the article or news story, "Research Says / Evidence on Flipped Classrooms Is Still Coming In", published in March 2013 by Bryan Goodwin and Kirsten Miller, they point out that a flipped classroom can benefit you from having students engage in activities more to improving test scores. Goodwin and Miller does this by observing other students that were given a chance to experience a flipped classroom. Ultimately, they are motivating the reader to give flipped classroom a chance to change how they learn.

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March 2013 | Volume 70 | Number 6
Technology-Rich Learning Pages 78-80

Bryan Goodwin and Kirsten Miller

The classroom lecture-it's been criticized, despised, even lampooned. An entire generation of moviegoers can recite Ben Stein's plea for students to wake up and respond to his dead-pan, droning lecture in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. ("Anyone? ... Anyone?")

Lectures aren't necessarily bad-they can be an effective way to help students acquire new knowledge (Hattie, 2008; Schwerdt & Wupperman, 2010). The problem with lectures is often a matter of pacing. For some students, the information may come too slowly or cover what they already know; other students may have trouble taking in information so rapidly, or they may lack the prior knowledge they need to understand the concepts presented. After a hit-or-miss lecture, teachers often assign homework, which many students perform in a private hell of frustration and confusion. What did my teacher say about cross-multiplying? Comma use in compound sentences? The Laffer curve?

Some teachers are now turning this model on its head, creating flipped or inverted classrooms in which they record lectures and post them online. Students watch the lectures at home, where they can speed through content they already understand or stop and review content they missed the first time the teacher discussed it (and might have been too embarrassed to ask their teacher to repeat in class). Online lectures can also easily incorporate visual representations, such as interactive graphs, videos, or photos of important historical events.

A Growing Practice, but Little Research

The flipped classroom seems to be catching on. According to the Flipped Learning Network (2012), membership on its social media site rose from 2,500 teachers in 2011 to 9,000 teachers in 2012. But does research show that this innovation, sensible as it sounds, really improves learning?

To date, there's no scientific research base to indicate exactly how well flipped classrooms work. But some preliminary nonscientific data suggest that flipping the classroom may produce benefits. In one survey of 453 teachers who flipped their classrooms, 67 percent reported increased test scores, with particular benefits for students in advanced placement classes and students with special needs; 80 percent reported improved student attitudes; and 99 percent said they would flip their classrooms again next year (Flipped Learning Network, 2012). Clintondale High School in Michigan saw the failure rate of its 9th grade math students drop from 44 to 13 percent after adopting flipped classrooms (Finkel, 2012).

The Indirect Research Base

The lack of hard scientific evidence doesn't mean teachers should not flip their classrooms; indeed, if we only implemented strategies supported by decades of research, we'd never try anything new. Until researchers are able to provide reliable data, perhaps the best we can do is to ask, Do the purported benefits of flipped classrooms reflect research-based principles of effective teaching and learning?

Improved Student-Teacher Interaction

Advocates of the flipped classroom claim that this practice promotes better student-teacher interaction. For example, Bergmann and Sams (2012) point out that when teachers aren't standing in front of the classroom talking at students, they can circulate and talk with students. If teachers use inverted classrooms this way, they are likely to better understand and respond to students' emotional and learning needs.

Research makes a strong case for the benefits of such interaction. Studies have shown that having teachers who recognize and respond to students' social and emotional needs is at least as important to academic development as specific instructional practices are, and this is especially true for at-risk students (Hamre & Pianta, 2005).

Opportunities for Real-Time Feedback

Proponents of flipped classrooms also assert that increased student-teacher interactions give teachers more opportunities to provide feedback to students. For example, a small pilot study funded by the Gates Foundation observed that during a five-week summer school program in which students received instruction through the Khan Academy website along with support from a teacher, the teacher spent significantly more one-on-one time with students than she had in her traditional classroom; thus, she was able to provide more feedback and immediately correct student misperceptions (Greenberg, Medlock, & Stephens, 2011).

Such increased opportunities for feedback could improve student learning because feedback has one of the strongest effect sizes of any instructional practice-in the 0.73-0.76 range, according to two meta-analyses (Beesley & Apthorp, 2010; Hattie, 2008).

Student Engagement

Another purported benefit of flipped classrooms is that "they speak the language of today's students" (Bergmann & Sams, 2012, p. 20), who are accustomed to turning to the web and social media for information and interaction. There may also be another, deeper, reason students find video lectures more engaging: Brain research tells us that the novelty of any stimulus tends to wear off after about 10 minutes, and as a result, learners tend to check out after 10 minutes of exposure to new content. After that, they either need a change of stimulus, emotional variety, or an opportunity to step back and process what they're learning (Medina, 2008). One benefit, then, of placing lectures online may be that they can break down direct instruction into more engaging, 10-minute bites of learning.

Self-Paced Learning

As noted earlier, putting lectures online enables students to pace their own learning according to their needs. Potentially, an inverted classroom allows the teacher to place an entire year or semester's worth of lectures online, enabling students to accelerate through the curriculum if they are ready. According to John Hattie's (2008) synthesis of 800 research meta-analyses, such acceleration has one of the strongest effect sizes (0.88) of any instructional intervention.

More Meaningful Homework

Another purported benefit of flipped classrooms is that they alter the nature of homework by having students practice and apply their learning in the classroom, under the watchful eye of the teacher (Bergmann & Sams, 2012; Greenberg, Medlock, & Stephens, 2011). In current practice, homework often appears ineffective in promoting learning. Beesley and Apthorp (2010) found that targeted, in-class opportunities for students to practice their skills with corrective teacher feedback had an effect size nearly four times that of homework, in which teachers had few opportunities to monitor students during their practice.

Flipping the Paradigm

At this time, we do not have direct scientific research to establish whether flipped classrooms increase student learning. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Indeed, there's reason to believe that flipped classrooms may enhance student learning if they are implemented thoughtfully, with careful attention to what research tells us about good instruction.

What inverted classrooms may really be flipping is not just the classroom, but the entire paradigm of teaching-away from a traditional model of teachers as imparters of knowledge and toward a model of teachers as coaches who carefully observe students, identify their learning needs, and guide them to higher levels of learning.

References

Beesley, A., & Apthorp, H. (Eds.). (2010). Classroom instruction that works, second edition: Research report. Denver, CO: McRel.

Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2012). Flip your classroom: Reach every student in every class every day. Washington, DC: ISTE; and Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Finkel, E. (2012, November). Flipping the script in K12. District Administration. Retrieved from www.districtadministration.com/article/flipping-script-k12

Flipped Learning Network. (2012). Improve student learning and teacher satisfaction with one flip of the classroom. Retrieved from author at http://flippedlearning1.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/classroomwindowinfographic7-12.pdf

Greenberg, B., Medlock, L., & Stephens, D. (2011). Blend my learning: Lessons from a blended learning pilot. Oakland, CA: Envison Schools, Google, & Stanford University D.School. Retrieved from http://blendmylearning.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/lessons-learned-from-a-blended-learning-pilot4.pdf

Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2005). Can instructional and emotional support in the first-grade classroom make a difference for children at risk of school failure? Child Development, 76(5) 949-967.

Hattie, J. (2008) Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York: Routledge.

Medina, J. (2008). Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Seattle, WA: Pear Press.

Schwerdt, G., & Wupperman, A.C. (2010). Is traditional teaching really all that bad? A within-student between-subject approach. Economics of Education Review, 30(2), 365-379.

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Evidence on Flipped Classrooms Is Still Coming In - Educational Leadership

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March 2013 | Volume 70 | Number 6 Technology-Rich Learning Pages 78-80 Bryan Goodwin and Kirsten Miller The classroom lecture-it's been criticized, despised, even lampooned. An entire generation of moviegoers can recite Ben Stein's plea for students to wake up and respond to his dead-pan, droning lecture in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

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Back to school: how to get your first university class off to a flying start

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Back to school: how to get your first university class off to a flying start

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In the article or news story, "Back to school: how to get your first university class off to a flying start", published in September 3, 2012 by David Atkinson, he states that instead of having a typical lecture, it's time to try something new for students. Atkinson does this by viewing how students react with lectures, since it goes either very bad or very good. Ultimately, they are suggesting the readers to encourage students to try out something new.

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Back to school: how to get your first university class off to a flying start

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Most university lecturers agree the first class of term is a daunting concept. After a tough year and some testing results, David Atkinson is rethinking how to meet and greet his students

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In the article, "Leaving Lectures Behind", published in September 11, 2011 by Jimmy Ryals, he states that we need to get students engaged in the class. Ryals does this by implementing studies and research from universities of helping students in need of help. Ultimately, they are informing the readers to think about the students that are struggling in lectures.

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Ask students and teachers what they like least about their classes, and you're likely to get the same answer from both: the lecture.

At NC State, physics professor Bob Beichner and curriculum and contemporary media specialist Lodge McCammon, are working to revoke the classroom lecture's status at the center of American education, from middle school through college.

Building stronger connections

Since 1997, Beichner, Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor of Physics, has led the Student-Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs ( SCALE-UP) project. The project's focus has been on transforming large-enrollment classes from lecture-driven, one-way exchanges into fully interactive environments where professors and students spend time applying knowledge.

The key to doing that, Beichner said, is changing the classroom itself. SCALE-UP classes left behind large lecture halls for more intimate spaces where students sit at round, nine-person tables that encourage more discussion.

"The class looks like a restaurant," said Beichner, who is also director of NC State's Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education Initiative. "In the same sense that a waiter needs to be free to get to everybody, the classroom's designed so that the faculty member can get to everybody."

SCALE-UP classes have also left the lecture behind. Students are responsible for digesting content outside the classroom, by reading textbooks, going online and doing simple homework, Beichner said. That preserves class time for applying the information and interacting with faculty members.

"That frees up the instructor time from what I call the 'tyranny of content delivery' because we don't need to do that anymore," Beichner said. "They can go around and help the students use the materials that they've been studying."

More interaction yields stronger relationships between faculty members and students. That's important, Beichner said, because studies have shown that good academic and social relationships are the single biggest factor correlated with student success.

And SCALE-UP classes get results. Students show marked improvement in problem-solving and conceptual understanding. They also have higher attendance rates than students in traditional classrooms, even though SCALE-UP classes generally don't have attendance policies.

That success has drawn national attention. Funding for SCALE-UP research has come from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer and Pasco Scientific. Earlier this week, Beichner received the 2011 Harold W. McGraw Prize in Education.

Nationwide, more than 100 universities are adapting SCALE-UP, to varying degrees. The University of Minnesota recently completed a building with classrooms designed for SCALE-UP learning. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, more than 90 percent of physics instruction occurs in SCALE-UP classrooms.

Flipping the classroom

Like Beichner, McCammon, of the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, is working at the middle- and high-school levels to replace classroom lectures with more interactive, engaging activities. In the average classroom, McCammon said, students spend 90 percent of their time absorbing lectures and only 10 percent of it applying what they learn.

Seeking to reverse that, McCammon developed what he calls the FIZZ learning framework, a system teachers can use to develop activities that engage different types of learners in different ways. At the low end of the spectrum are activities that require students to simply remember information they hear. High-engagement activities call on students to apply ideasand, eventually, to create and publish their own works to show their mastery of information.

Central to McCammon's ideas is the removal of the lecture from the classroom. Teachers applying his ideas have begun recording 10-minute video lectures and having students view them outside the classroom. As in Beichner's SCALE-UP college courses, classroom time is devoted to discussing and applying what students have learned.

McCammon calls it "flipping the classroom."

"It comes down to how teachers are using their time because right now in most public schools we're still lecturing the kids," he said. "We still have rows. It still looks exactly like it did 50 years ago. But the culture of students has changed. That's a significant problem."

To illustrate an assignment that would rate highly on his FIZZ framework, McCammon suggested having students view a 10-minute video lecture on cell biology at the library, then write and publish a blog post on the topic. The video lectures are shorter, McCammon said, because they come without the interruptions - discipline, repetition - of the classroom. Students can watch video as many times as they'd like, even reviewing it during class if necessary.

This approach also closes the technology gap between the classroom and the world outside it, McCammon said. Students have to access web video outside class to see lectures. Activities on the high end of his FIZZ model often incorporate technologies students have grown accustomed to in the outside world.

For teachers, going FIZZ is simpler than it may seem. All it takes is a whiteboard, a set of markers and an inexpensive video camera. On the FIZZ homepage, McCammon has posted step- by- step videos on how to flip classrooms.

Teachers at Raleigh's Durant Road Middle School and Panther Creek High School flipped their classrooms earlier this year, McCammon said.

"Every teacher I've talked to who's done this responds the same way," he said. "Usually, the first thing they say is, 'I'm not exhausted at the end of the day. This has changed my professional life.'"

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Ask students and teachers what they like least about their classes, and you're likely to get the same answer from both: the lecture. At NC State, physics professor Bob Beichner and curriculum and contemporary media specialist Lodge McCammon, are working to revoke the classroom lecture's status at the center of American education, from middle school through college.