Considerations When Evaluating the Classroom Flip Instructional Technique
This chapter addresses the development of a strong formative evaluation piece—a necessity for strong course design. It discusses evaluating the impact that flipping has on teaching and student learning. The chapter also provides readers with an overview o
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Abstract This chapter addresses the development of a strong formative evaluation piece—a necessity for strong course design. It discusses evaluating the impact that flipping has on teaching and student learning. The chapter also provides readers with an overview of a research-based approach to evaluation and describes what other sources of evidence might help one better understand the flipped classroom implementation. It concludes with concise summary of useful ideas and considerations, including ideas about making such research publishable.
Introduction Evaluating instruction and its impact on student learning should be a central element of teaching practice. Evaluation is especially important when a teacher makes a substantial shift away from commonly expected teaching approaches, such as implementing a “flipped” classroom. Such a substantial change can lead to unexpected outcomes and pitfalls that need to be carefully monitored. Shifting away from commonplace teaching practice (e.g., lecture) can also lead to higher levels of anxiety for the teacher and students even though flipping the classroom provides flexibility in terms of what an instructor does inside the classroom and requires students to do outside the classroom. Ultimately, the classroom flip is a framework that allows instructors to increase their use of evidence-based instructional practices1 in the classroom (Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2009; Slavin, 2002), by freeing up time that had originally been allocated for lecture. Out-of-class time is no longer spent on homework; rather, students are asked to learn from instructional materials, such as online videos. The use of in-class time is dedicated to activities that are more active, constructive, or interactive in nature (Chi, 2009), allowing students to have increased engagement with the course material. Individual instructors’ course plans may vary 1
Instructional strategies whose efficacy is supported by research in education or psychology.
S.E. Zappe (*) • T.A. Litzinger Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 L. Santos Green et al. (eds.), The Flipped College Classroom, Educational Communications and Technology: Issues and Innovations, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41855-1_4
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substantially based on the course objectives and the nature of the discipline. However, regardless of the specific instructional practices implemented during class time, there are several common considerations for evaluation of all variations of implementations of the flipped classroom. This chapter discusses key considerations for evaluating flipped courses. Based on our work evaluating flipped courses in the undergraduate engineering context, we provide various strategies for individuals who are beginning to consider how to evaluate a flipped classroom. Specific topics discussed in this chapter include: strategic course planning, formative and summative evaluation, using research-based approaches,
