EDUCAUSE: 7 things you should know about flipped classrooms
"The flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed. Short video lectures are viewed by students at home before the class session, while in–class time is devoted to exercises, projects, or discussions. The video lecture is often seen as the key ingredient in the flipped approach, such lectures being either created by the instructor and posted online or selected from an online repository. While a prerecorded lecture could certainly be a podcast or other audio format, the ease with which video can be accessed and viewed today has made it so ubiquitous that the flipped model has come to be identified with it.
The notion of a flipped classroom draws on such concepts as active learning, student engagement, hybrid course design, and course podcasting. The value of a flipped class is in the repurposing of class time into a workshop where students can inquire about lecture content, test their skills in applying knowledge, and interact with one another in hands–on activities. During class sessions, instructors function as coaches or advisors, encouraging students in individual inquiry and collaborative effort."
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Do teaching models in higher education need reinventing?
"Michael Barber, chief education adviser of the world's largest education firm, Pearson, has been reported saying middle–ranking UK universities could face extinction within the next 10 years if they don't find a way to 'mark themselves out of the crowd'. He said the traditional lecture model is outdated and remarked it was pointless for 100 universities to develop the same courses when 'the best professors are making their course available for free'.
If it's not just universities that face extinction, but university lectures too, is it time to rethink the way academics teach in universities? How do lecturers now see their role in higher education? And what do they think is the teaching model of the future?"
(Claire Shaw, 12 March 2013, Guardian Professional)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
SCALE-UP: solving the shortcomings in traditional physics instruction
"Studio/workshop classes such as SCALE–UP (Student–Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs) give instructors another choice by replacing the lecture/laboratory format with 4–6 hours of activity–based instruction per week, typically in 2–hour blocks. This format has several advantages over the traditional lecture/laboratory format. Because the entire class is taught in the same room with the same students and instructors in each class, all activities, including laboratory experiments, can be arranged to build on one another in sequence for greater learning impact (14) than when some activities are taught in small sections running parallel to the lecture course. When a lab section is taught as a separate course, it is often weeks or at best a few days ahead of or behind the lecture, and for some students, the lab course is not even taken in the same term as the lecture. Additionally, even in an interactive lecture, students can avoid instructors by hiding in the middle of the row, away from the aisles. In the studio format, instructors can freely circulate and interact with any group at any time."
(Robert Beichner and Jeffery Saul)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Seeking quality in criterion referenced assessment
"Norm and criterion referenced assessment are two distinctly different methods of awarding grades that express quite different values about teaching, learning and student achievement. Norm referenced assessment, or 'grading on the curve' as it is commonly known, places groups of students into predetermined bands of achievements. Students compete for limited numbers of grades within these bands which range between fail and excellence. This form of grading speaks to traditional and rather antiquated notions of 'academic rigour' and 'maintaining standards'. It says very little about the nature or quality of teaching and learning, or the learning outcomes of students. Grading is formulaic and the procedure for calculating a final grade is largely invisible to students.
Criterion referenced assessment has been widely adopted in recent times because it seeks a fairer and more accountable assessment regime than norm referencing. Students are measured against identified standards of achievement rather than being ranked against each other. In criterion referenced assessment the quality of achievement is not dependent on how well others in the cohort have performed, but on how well the individual student has performed as measured against specific criteria and standards. Underlying this grading scheme is a concern for accountability regarding the qualities and achievements of students, transparency and negotiability in the process by which grades are awarded, an acknowledgement of subjectivity and the exercise of professional judgement in marking."
(Lee Dunn, Sharon Parry and Chris Morgan, 2002)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Integrative Education: education proceeds from the interests of students rather than from disciplined subject matter
"As early as 1918, Kilpatrick elaborated a 'project method,' in which education proceeded from the interests of students rather than from disciplined subject matter. In the 1930s, thirty schools participated in a long–term experiment with integrative education called the 'Eight–Year Study.' Although this study documented the benefits of integrative education, the study had little impact on the traditional structure of education (Daniel L. Kain 1993). In spite of its shortcomings, the practice of breaking down instruction into separate academic disciplines has seldom been challenged.
While integrative education is not new, current supporters offer proof of its wisdom by pointing to recent research that indicates information is most securely encoded and best retrieved by the brain when it can be connected to a web of meaning. Jane Roland Martin (1995) argues that integrative education allows curricula to educate through the experiences of diverse races, genders, and classes, thus creating a place of significance for each child."
(Dean Walker, ERIC Digest 101 January 1995)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
