What are your opinions of a flipped classroom at the secondary level?

Question

Warning: a lot of this post borrows heavily from education theory. I'm in my student teaching semester right now, so a lot of what I explain is taken from research papers and things like that. So how realistic it all is, I don't know.

I've been thinking a lot recently about different ways of running a secondary mathematics classroom. I've heard some teachers have great success with a flipped model, and some teachers hate it. Here is my current understanding how it all works:

Students are expected to go home and watch a video and do some problems as homework a couple times a week. Then when they get to class, the time is reserved for reviewing the videos and homework, and then spending the rest of the time doing projects and applying the knowledge.

In theory, it sounds great. Less lecturing in the classroom, and more project-based instruction. But I see a few drawbacks as well:

I can see students not wanting to do homework that is "new" to them. Students are used to getting problems in class, and very similar problems for homework. This is a problem in mathematics education, but it is probably the most prevalent model used. Come to class, review homework, see new problems, go home, do problems similar to class for homework, rinse and repeat.

Another issue I see with a flipped classroom model is that it doesn't really allow students to discover the math on their own. Sure, they're learning new material on their own at home via some video and some problems, but it's really not that different from an in-class lecture. In my mind, an ideal mathematics education would have students seeing real problems, and create an atmosphere where the students are asking the questions, and "reinventing" the mathematics required to solve the problem. (This concept is known as RME - Realistic Mathematics Education and/or IBL - Inquiry Based Learning).

It almost seems as if the ideal flipped classroom would be backwards. What I mean is that students begin with projects in class, and then their homework is the lecture which "formalizes" what they discovered in class. This borrows from the idea of something called "The Iceberg Model" or "Progressive Formalization".

I would love to hear what you guys think about this backwards flipped classroom idea, and what you think the ideal classroom would be like. How is class time spent? What is for homework? What does the week look like for a student?

Answer 1

From this statement

I've been thinking a lot recently about different ways of running a secondary mathematics classroom.

and that you said you are student-teaching, it sounds like you want to try out a flipped classroom with your students but are hesitant because of your lack of experience. In that sense, I read your question as:

Should I flip my classroom?

Now, I do not know anything about your school, area, student demographics, etc. but the first thing that you need to ask yourself is "Why do I want to flip the classroom?" Maybe your students are completing their work but not performing well on tests. Maybe they are doing well with mechanical tasks but they are struggling with conceptual understandings. Or maybe nothing is working at all. Either way, you should have a justifiable reason for making a major change to your classroom structure and environment. This is both to give motivation to continue with flipping even if it is rocky at first and to cover your butt for administration and parents. Flipping of a classroom will almost surely raise a few eyebrows (unless this is already a part of the culture of the school) and it is in your best interest to be able to "prove" why you decided to flip.

Once you have a reason the next question you need to ask yourself is "Who are my students?". This is crucial because if you don't have a real understanding of the capabilities and resources available to your students, the flipping will almost surely be a fail. Things like having a lack of a computer/internet access, taking care of family members, or having jobs are all things that can complicate flipping, mainly because it means students will probably not do the homework consistently and without that, flipping really doesn't work. However, if you gauge your situation and judge that flipping, i.e. doing substantial work at home each night, is a reasonable expectation then I think that you should absolutely try it out.

As far as my experience goes, the best flipped classrooms are ones where:

1. Students consistently do the homework
2. The homework is used to introduce topics and give students a base exposure to working with the concept
3. Class time is used to review the homework, assess understanding and dig deeper into the more conceptual aspects, usually through projects, activities, and collaboration

As far as running a flipped classroom, here are my tips:

• Start out slow. Try out 1 or 2 days a week where the class is flipped and see how it goes. Explain to your students exactly what this "new thing" is, why they are doing it, what you hope to achieve from it, and what the expectations are. If it goes well then step it up to 3, 4, 5 days a week as you see fit. However, the more likely outcome is that it will not go well at first, and in that case you should
• Stick with it. At least for a half-dozen cycles or so. At that point you should definitely either feel it still dragging and not really working or you will start to see things slowly improve. To help things improve, i suggest you regularly
• Talk with your students. Ask them what they like about it? What they don't like about it? Their ideas to make it more useful/engaging? You don't necessarily have to follow through with everything they say but it is essential to have that dialogue and to know what they are thinking. All that being said, the last tip is to
• Know when to throw in the towel. If it is the second month of flipping your classroom and you still are having the same problems you were two months ago, it is probably time to stop. Again, you are the ultimate judge of when enough is enough and it will depend on each individual situation. At some point it becomes damaging to your students' educations to continue with consistently ineffective pedagogy.

Without knowing your specific situation, that is about as much as I can say. If you are this interested in flipping, I think you should try it. Especially with teaching, the best way to learn how effective something is is to just try it out and see how it goes. I hope this helps, I hope you decide to try out flipping, and I hope you learn from the experience. Best of luck with your student teaching!

Answer 2

While it may be true that sometimes 'backwards' flipping might be effective, sometimes it might rather be preferable to provide some of the low level content in a video watched beforehand. This would allow students to engage with the material at a higher level in class. You could try pre- and post- class videos. It might depend on the level of difficulty of the topic which method works best. Even within a single course, you wouldn't have to do the same thing with every topic.

Personally I'd usually prefer to have the students arriving at class time with some idea of the topic. (I flip some lower level college math classes.)