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You teach a course where you normally lecture to students during class time.
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They work on homework and group assignments during their own time.
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What if there were a way to do the lectures outside of class time
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so you could use class time to have students work on activities together?
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Welcome to Flipping the Classroom Simply Speaking.
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It's a pretty common course design.
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Students gather in a classroom a few times a week to hear a lecture.
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A faculty member may show slides, play a few videos,
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demonstrate some concepts, or solve problems.
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On their own time, students work on problems and arrange times to meet
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to work on group projects.
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Some faculty are finding ways to increase student engagement
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and improve learning by flipping this design.
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In the new model, students watch, listen to, and interact with content
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on their own time and then use class time for engaging activities.
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Heres how it works.
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Say youre teaching a biology course.
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One week, you talk about invasive animal species, such as the Asian Carp.
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Instead of lecturing, you post a few YouTube videos about Asian Carp.
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You also produce a video of your own in which you show some photographs
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of other invasive species and talk about their origins.
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You want to keep each video interesting,
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so you keep them under 10 minutes each.
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To help trigger discussion, you also include some questions
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that you will be asking students to think and talk about
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during your next class session.
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Later in the semester, students can go back to these videos
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to review key concepts to prepare for an exam
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or to guide a project or paper.
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Short videos are just one option.
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Audio podcasts, VoiceThread, and and many types of interactive media
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can be used as well.
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The main idea is to capture your presence, thoughts, and guidance
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that would normally take place in a classroom setting.
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Now that the lecture is done outside the classroom,
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what do your students do when they get together?
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You can have students bring their laptops to class, work in groups,
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and research one of the other invasive species that you discussed
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in your video.
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Where did they come from?
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What impact are they having?
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What is being done to control them?
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Since they are doing this research during class time,
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they can get your assistance in determining good sources of information
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and how to interpret what they are seeing.
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Also, youll get a better idea of which students are doing their fair share
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of work in their groups.
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There won't be any more excuses that students dont have time
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to get together for group work.
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If an interesting idea comes from one group,
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you can get the attention of the class and have a spontaneous discussion.
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In short, you can create a much more active environment.
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There are many other activities you can do in the classroom.
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Have students discuss course concepts or take different sides
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of an issue and debate their merits.
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Students could share drafts of papers that they are writing
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and get feedback from you and other students.
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Students can work on difficult problem sets, share solutions,
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and ask for help when they get stuck.
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Organize students into groups and have them answer questions about a case study.
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Or they could write and practice a presentation about a topic of your choosing.
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There are ways of using class time for activities involving any discipline.
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The important thing is to get students to engage with the content of your course.
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Flipping your classroom involves some serious thinking
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about the way you are teaching and the way students learn,
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so you may want to start with a single topic or week and see how it goes.
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The results may surprise you.
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This has been Flipping the Classroom Simply Speaking.
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To get more information about this topic, visit tlt.its.psu.edu/flip
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This video was produced by Penn State University
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and is available for use under a Creative Commons license.