Forums
I am concidering putting portions of my lectures online for my students to review prior to class. I would assign this as homework. I might try this with a discussion of Wade's Rules. I would spend the class time doing examples instead of trying to cram in the basics and examples all at once.
I was wondering if anyone has tried flipping the class and had success. I would like to hear the details of what topics that you have tried and how you did it (what was on the online lecture and what was done in class).
Thanks,
Mary
Hi Mary,
I have "flipped" my "Chemistry for Health Professions" course. I teach the first semester of a full year course (the general chemistry portion of the GOB course) that is taken in the first year by sports medicine and athletic training students. I started the process last year using Camtasia to make videos for pre-lab lectures and to work through more advanced problems. This year, I have totally flipped the classroom - each day the students have a reading assignment in the text and a online set of questions in my inline homework system. In lecture, I ask between 8-10 questions that I previousy used as homework questions. The students are split up into groups and they work together to solve the problems. I gather student responses using clickers.
Over the first 5 weeks, I have been pleased with response by the students. They bring their textbooks to class each day and they consult them regularly - much more than previous years when I stricty lectured.
I am considering doing this for my sophomore-level inorganic chemistry course that I am teaching next semester.
As the semester progresses, I will keep you updated.
Cheers, Anthony
One of my colleagues is "flipping" a section of gen chem this fall (I think he is teaching one normal and one "flipped" for assessment purposes). If I hear anything that I can share, I will share it here.
<edit>
I was wrong. The original plan was that he was going to flip his class but he didn't do it this fall. Next year.
I've experimented with flipping my inorganic class this semester, with mediocre success. I've noted that students do come to class with their course materials as Anthony has, and I'm pleased with several of the students and their ability to find material in the textbook, but there is a fairly significant divide (in a class of 12) between students who prepare and those who don't. I provide a reading assignment, recommended problems and topics that will be on the daily quiz on our course management system. Few students perform well on the quiz despite their knowing the questions. I suspect in my case there is an issue with reading comprehension, effective note taking, and poor self-study skills that are contributing to this problem. In class the students work together fairly well, but progress is terribly slow. I've yet to see a day when we've been able to go through more than 2-3 problems in a lecture period. I do find that having additional tools like POGIL-style worksheets helps the flow of instruction and prevents the class reverting to an ad hoc (read: unprepared) lecture.
The flipped classroom has been very helpful in qualitative assessment, as it has become very clear which students are coming to class prepared and grasping the material.
While I'm luke warm on the teaching style at present, I suspect my tendency to fall back into a more comfortable interactive lecture style is one of the impediments to successful implementation of the flipped classroom in my case. I think spending more time identifying an appropriate set of problems that guide students through the material in a semi-self-sufficient way will be necessary to make a flipped classroom successful and productive.
Be sure to check out Kathryn Haas's LO about her inorganic chemistry flipped classroom. She has links to her videos. They're so cool!
Advanced Inorganic Chemistry Course Videos