<p>Those with lower grades will continue to drop out of the science programs. C’s ain’t gonna cut it for grad school, for professional…</p>
<p>Unless they attend a school known for its rigor.
Science classes are not generally lecture based on my experience, but lab or field based. Hands on experience seems to take hold better than strictly auditory and visual.</p>
<p>
I would point out that my student body could hardly be said to have any significant overlap with theirs. You still have not indicated how this approach makes them better at paying attention.</p>
<p>If it makes them better at paying attention, what difference does it make why it makes them better at paying attention? </p>
<p>I don’t know about this one. It all seems a bit gimmicky to me—like clicker questions amped up a notch or two. If someone’s not interested in the material, forced interaction won’t change that. I mean, it’ll look good when attendance rates skyrocket, but that’ll be more an effect of students wanting to save their own academic skin than suddenly thinking, hey, I do like [introductory science class] after all! </p>
<p>I had an AP teacher like this in high school and I hated that class. You were expected to self-study the material beforehand and work on textbook problems during class, and would be randomly called on to explain a concept. It was pretty embarrassing to walk up to the whiteboard and flat-out admit you weren’t sure what you were doing because it hadn’t been taught yet. As for students that were already proficient in the material, this didn’t increase their enthusiasm either—if anything, it stifled it by preventing them from contributing as much as they would’ve liked. And assigned group collaborations? Oh, please. Not productive at all. </p>
<p>I wasn’t a fan of the course to begin with, and all this certainly didn’t help. Would I have been a frequent participator in class discussion had it not been for this teaching style? Probably not, but the participation wasn’t genuine (or voluntary) anyway and I also wouldn’t have * switched majors to avoid retaking the class in college * had it not been for my terrible time with it. </p>
<p>I know it’s just one experience, and the Davis professor might be doing things that “redeem” the experimental aspect of the course, but I honestly think regular lectures are just fine, especially for STEM classes at large research universities such as the one mentioned. </p>
<p>TL;DR: pretending to be interested ≠ actually interested </p>
<p>I think that attention is the key issue here. If most of the students zone out by the 15 minute mark of a lecture, then I imagine they would zone out by 15 minutes into the video of the flipped lecture. Perhaps they could separate the video lecture into 10-minute segments, interspersed by texting, Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, Hulu-Plus, eating, cleaning the dorm room (ha, ha), etc. In a lot of STEM courses, there is essential connectivity between the 10-minute segments, though, because something is being shown or proven that takes multiple steps to establish. Separating the segments would definitely be less efficient for the learner.</p>
<p>Can they read a textbook or scholarly book profitably for more than 15 minutes at a time?</p>
<p>If they go into STEM, and go to scientific conferences, where one of the main modes of communication consists of back-to-back presentations that last 30 to 60 minutes (depending on conference and speaker), will they be able to glean what they should from the talks?</p>
<p>In the “olden days,” the theory of STEM classes was that the students would read the textbook ahead of the lecture, go to the lecture, and then work on problem sets outside of class. During the lecture, it was presumed that the students were actually paying attention–thinking about what was being presented and asking questions about it. College students often had some preparation for this, because they had experience with the same mode of instruction in high school, with actual lectures in some fraction of their classes. Does that still happen where you are?</p>
<p>Most people learn more if they spend more time on the subject (obvious exceptions, of course). The earlier model of college STEM courses involved working outside of class for (typically) 3 to 4 times the time spent in the lectures, at least in upper-division courses. The flipped classroom seems like an effort to get students to spend at least 2 times the amount of time spent in the classroom.</p>
<p>
We do this same before and after testing in our intro courses. In one of my 2 sections this Fall, the class had statistically no improvement, in the other one it was about the usual value. 50 percent more than NONE is still NONE. There is no “one size fits all” solution here.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>IMO, the correlation is backwards. It’s not that students pay more attention in class – although they may – which is important, but its more that they are forced to read/digest the material before class so if called upon, they won’t look like a deer in headlights.</p>
<p>Kinda like the first year of law school – professors will cold call on students under the Socratic method. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In the flipped lecture systems I know about, the student listens to a few lectures, none as long as 15 minutes. But the NYTimes article is not talking about a flipped lecture system. According to the article, before class, the students are supposed to go online, do some reading, and answer some questions. So the lecturers know before class who has done the pre-homework.</p>
<p>^And is the point then to call upon the ones who haven’t, so as to embarrass them into doing so the next time?</p>
<p>Does that mean fear of embarrassment is a more powerful motivator than wanting to learn the material in the first place?</p>
<p>I didn’t get the impression that they were “calling on” students as such. Sounds like they’d ask questions that all students answered with their clicker, and had small group activities that all students had to do.</p>
<p>I helped out at a community college algebra class like this. There would be a short little talk, and then the students worked in groups on problems. The teacher (and me when I was there) would circulate, answer questions and give help and hints. Then another little talk, then more problems. Surprisingly, even though this was a remedial class, the students did indeed mostly all participate and work problems. The way to slack in a class like that would be not to go to class at all, because if you were there, you worked.</p>
<p>I had a variation on this opportunity in college. Physics I was taught by an aged prof with a thick accent, who went very quickly. Her assumption was that once she said something, it was understood. (After all, it made sense to her.) Textbooks were…well, textbooks. No opportunity to stretch understanding via the web, etc. I didn’t do well. But still had a sci requirement to fulfill. The next year they offered a more hands-on version, taught by a new PhD- a class really about thinking, but not soft. World o’ difference. (The diff was not solely the prof- it was the style and the goals behind this revamp.) I got enough out of that to know that, had I kept up with higher math, I would have explored physics as a major. I ended up in an engineering field, though not as a trained engineer- and still find the subject fascinating. Isn’t that what we want? The talk can go over my head and, ha, I still can get enough out of it.</p>
<p>
And this? You would not interpret this as “calling on” students as such?
</p>
<p>I favor anything that works.</p>
<p>Flipping the classroom is done different ways in different places. We have had entire lectures videotaped and put on line, for viewing outside the class, with problem-solving in class. This has raised problems about accessibility of the material to people who have vision or hearing problems. The university is working on that, but in the meantime, a lot of the flipped lectures are back off the web.</p>
<p>Going back to PG’s original post, biology that was all taxonomy and chemistry that was all about the periodic table was out of fashion when I was in high school. It sounds as though it made a comeback, since PG is roughly a decade younger than I. But then it disappeared again, by the time that QMP was in high school. Or it could be a question of locality.</p>
<p>You’re right, the instructors were calling on the students at random. It’s a good way to keep students on their toes.</p>