Flipping of Large Engineering Courses in Resource-Limited Settings Waheed U. Bajwa Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey Keywords: flipped classroom, large classroom, MOOC, YouTube
Why? Problem: How should engineering courses be taught for effective transfer of knowledge – Lecture: Works only for the brightest of students – MOOC: Requires strict discipline and self motivation – Flipping: Requires small classes & specialized resources Education objectives: Investigation of effective variants of flipped classrooms that: – Can be implemented at cash-strapped institutions – Can be used for large, required engineering classes
When? Spring 2012: Seed of the idea planted during lecture-format teaching of a required, junior-level signal processing class with 90+ students – Issues noticed: You snooze, you lose; notes don’t convey all the information; weak students give up easily Spring 2013: Reliance on supplemental videos (Khan Academy, YouTube, MOOCs, etc.) fails to help Spring 2014: Started recording lectures using cheap equipment & uploading on a YouTube channel Spring 2015: Re-recording of YouTube videos with emphasis on topics, rather than on weekly lectures
Where? The idea for this originated from discussions with Prof. Van Veen, who teaches a flipped (elective) signal processing class at the Univ. of Wisconsin Our focus at Rutgers is on large engineering classes, which precludes the use of traditional flipping paradigm due to lack of suitable instructional space and unavailability of large number of TA slots Our eventual goal is to have this approach to teaching engineering classes adopted by most instructors of required classes in the Dept. of ECE
What? YouTube Channel (SigProcessing) that contains complete video lectures on Signal Processing from Spring 2014 offering and complete videos of all Signal Processing topics from Spring 2015 offering The YouTube videos are offering weak students an opportunity to revisit key concepts again and again – Despite the availability of videos, there has been no significant drop in weekly student attendance YouTube Analytics for the week before exams shows students are utilizing these videos for preparation
Prognosis? YouTube analytics, performance of weak students on quizzes and exams, and engagement of students in the class provide a weak measure of impact The next step is to ask students to watch videos before class and develop class exercises that the students can do in class to reinforce ideas learned from the videos Upcoming challenges include dealing with lack of sufficient human resources (instructors and TAs) and appropriately- structured classrooms that can help students extract the most out of their in-class activities I am looking for FOEE participants to share their experiences with flipped classrooms and their thoughts on implementing them for large engineering classes with limited resources