Flipping Classrooms – Working Students Research and ideas in education that made me sit up

1. Flipping Classrooms – Working StudentsResearch and ideas in education that made me sit up Quintin Cutts School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow PTASF – 26-6-13

2. Seating position

3. Infectious ideas • Mindset – Carol Dweck • Flipping the Classroom – Eric Mazur and others • Interaction – Michelene Chi • The Culture of Apprenticeship • Brown, Collins & Duguid • Anna Sfard • Incentivisation – Barry Schwartz

4. Dweck's Mindset • Belief: A person's ability at a task/subject… • can grow growth mindset • is fixed fixed mindset • An attitude towards ability to learn things • can be different for different 'things' • can be changed – in both directions • managers' attitudes influence how they manage teach teachers'

5. Experiment • Level 1 Programming class • Three conditions • Taught about Mindset in short weekly sessions • Provided a crib sheet of advice for when stuck • Added a mindset-based rubric to feedback sheet • Mindset + Rubric group did better • But…

6. The more valuable question… • If I believe Dweck's Mindset ideas… • can I stomach my instructional design any more? • For example • lectures • lab exercise marking • guidance for improvement (also Kirschner et al.)

7. Addressing inactivity in lectures • Applying concepts as early as possible • short thought or pencil/paper exercises • Electronic Voting Systems • adding questions through the lecture • All very well, but… • it's the pedagogy that matters

8. Flipping the Classroom Lab Exam Homework Lecture Traditional First Exposure (easy stuff) Was it understood? (hard stuff) Show KnowledgeMastery Practice KnowledgeMastery Lecture Homework Lab Exam Flipped Learn Hard Stuff: With teacher and peer discussion Practice KnowledgeMastery First Exposure and practice: With resources – easy stuff Show KnowledgeMastery

9. Mazur's Peer Instruction recipe… • Pre-reading / exercises • Quiz on entry to class • Series of MCQs • Pose question, student votes individually • Discussion in groups of 3 • Arguing for their answer • Students vote again • Instructor leads a class-wide discussion

10. Follow the recipe!!! • Non-majors programming class, required • 200 students • Typical response to "your role in class" question: I felt more was expected from me in this class compared to ‘standard’ lectures. If I wanted to learn, I had to participate by coming to class, answering clicker questions, and discussing with my team. In other classes, I don’t have to attend lecture and can just read the book and hope I understand it. But by putting in effort, I was able to grasp concepts better than if I tried to do it on my own. I was also expected to participate and contribute to class discussions, which helped me understand how to interpret questions and *why* I chose an answer. Knowing why an answer is right or wrong helped me the most. This sort of discussion with other students doesn’t happen in other classes, and we all end up confused. In fact, helping each other understand the questions by explaining it helps us retain that information even more.

11. Used Chi's Active-Constructive-Interactive framework • More learning, the higher up the framework • Active – listening, watching the lecturer • as long as it's not Facebook, it's Active • Constructive – notes, drawing, summaries, answering questions • Interactive – discussing with peers / teachers • Two runs of the course, PI and non-PI • non-PI section still had quizzes, demonstrations

12. Participation - Apprenticeship • Brown, Collins and Duguid • Situated cognition theory • knowledge situated in triad of tools, activities and culture • Suspect we forget the 'culture' part • and enculturation is a big part of learning • PG study, scuba diving • Sfard • on two metaphors for learning and the dangers of choosing just one

13. Incentivisation • Barry Schwartz • of "Paradox of Choice" fame • The nursery • In one of my classes, participation essential • so awarded points for attendance •  • Assessed coursework •  • Marks for group agreement in PI second vote •  • Assessed quiz at the start of each PI session • 

14. The nuggets • Seating position • Non-obvious result, hard to explain, deeply disturbing • Mindset • Do we believe our students can improve, and if we do, does our instructional design match our belief? • Interaction • Is regular discussion a requirement? • Apprenticeship / participatory learning • If it fits PG education, then why not UG as well? • Incentivisation • A dangerous tool. Use very carefully!

15. Perkins, K. and Wieman, C. The Surprising Impact of Seat Location on Student Performance. The Physics Teacher, 43. 2005. • DweckMindset, or • Dweck, C.S. Self-Theories – Their role in Motivation, Personality and Development. Philadelphia: Taylor and Francis/Psychology Press, 1999. • Cutts, Q., Cutts, E., Draper, S., O'Donnell, P. and Saffrey, P. Manipulating Mindset to Positively Influence Introductory Programming Performance. Proc. 41stACM SIGCSE symposium. 2010. • Kirschner, P., Sweller, J. and Clark, R. Why Minimal Guidance during Insruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential and Inquiry-Based Teaching. Educational Psychologist, 41(2), 75-86. 2006 • Crouch, C. H., and Mazur, E. Peer instruction: Ten years of experience and results. American Journal of Physics 69. 2001. • Chi, M. T. Active‐constructive‐interactive: A conceptual framework for differentiating learning activities. Topics in Cognitive Science, 1(1). 2009. • Simon, B., Esper, S., Porter, L. and Cutts, Q. Student Experience in a Student-Centred Peer Instruction Classroom. Accepted for 9th International Computing Education Research Conference, San Diego, August 2013. • Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1). 1989. • Sfard, A., On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One. Educational Researcher, 27(2). 1998.