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Flipping in statistics teaching for psychologists

Flipping in statistics teaching for psychologists. Rory Allen. Why did I do it?. In the year 2011-2012, I was given three masters classes in statistics to teach.

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Flipping in statistics teaching for psychologists

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  1. Flipping in statistics teaching for psychologists RoryAllen

  2. Why did I do it? • In the year 2011-2012, I was given three masters classes in statistics to teach. • In term 1, this involved 4 hours a week class time for each masters course, repeating the same class three separate times: 12 hours of contact time per week. • This included computer demonstrations with SPSS.

  3. I was bored at having to repeat material, and students suffered in two ways: • Those with language or note-taking problems found it hard to keep up, • SPSS procedures cannot easily be recorded in writing.

  4. “Yet I was driven to it, and good was thus done to me” Saint Augustine • I had been aware of screencasting from my own use of the internet • I obtained a learning and teaching fellowship from GLEU at Goldsmiths to screencast the lectures and SPSS demos for the year 2012-2013. • Used Camtasia Studio 7, simple and intuitive software. • Decided to have one class as a “control group”: traditional lectures, and remaining two as “experimental group”.

  5. At this stage I did not use full flipping (student resistance, lack of confidence) • But simply made the screencasts available to the “treatment” group and not to the controls. • Nevertheless the exam results showed a benefit to those with access to the screencasts:

  6. Results I

  7. Results II

  8. There were 7% better marks in treatment vs control class in 2013, • And significantly higher pass rates in treatment class vs control class • But results were not spectacular: half measures leading to half success?

  9. 2013/14 vs 2012/13: The Full Monty • Difference this year: only teaching two classes, • Teaching by flipping, so that students were told they had to watch the screencast in advance.

  10. Results

  11. Results

  12. Results

  13. Benefits • A 15% improvement in exam marks as result of flipping, statistically significant. • A happier (certainly less bored) lecturer! • Once screencasts are done, the investment will pay off for years in topics where there tends to be little change year on year (certainly for stats). • Screencasts can be drawn on for MOOCs.

  14. Problems • The exam will now be seen as not hard enough; • clustering round high scores does not allow for distinguishing between students who are merely good and those who are exceptional. • Though the exam can be made more challenging for next year, and additional, practical SPSS exam can be included.

  15. Problems • It takes a large investment of time to screencast lectures; • AND there will be a temptation for departments to think they can cut costs by reducing expensive lecturing time.

  16. Lessons learned • Flipping can work, and is especially good for subjects which are unpopular and hard for students to grasp. • Probably works because procedures are available on podcast for multiple access, students can follow demonstration, pause, self-test. • Students like podcasts at revision time.

  17. Lessons learned • Demonstrations in class can deliver an idea in multiple modalities: eg regression towards the mean. • Quizzes in class encourage active involvement of students.

  18. Lessons learned • Quizzes on VLE encourage students to use self-testing: demonstrably the most effective revision tool (Dunlosky et al., 2013). • It is more effective for students to re-visit at intervals material previously taught, rather than being taught material in one solid block after another: “distributed practice” and “interleaved practice” are far the most effective ways of reinforcing effective learning (Dunlosky et al., 2013).

  19. References • Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K., Marsh, E., Nathan, M., and Willingham, D. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. • Flora, C. (2012). Students flipping over new teaching style. The Explorer News. Downloaded from http://explorernews.com/news/article_81c71a36-4165-11e1-93d2-001871e3ce6c.html • Peterson, E. (2007). Incorporating screencasts in online teaching. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Downloaded from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/495/935 • Pinter-Grover, T., Millunchick, J., and Bierwert, C. (2008). Work in progress – using screencasts to enhance student learning in a large lecture material science and engineering course. 38th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, Saratoga Springs, NY.

  20. Acknowledgements • GLEU for providing the fellowship funding, • to the Psychology Department for paying for the podcasting software – Camtasia Studio • Rob Davis and Ian Hannent in the department for setting up the sound recording system • Mira Vogel for her extensive help and advice in using learn.gold to deliver the material.

  21. Any questions?

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