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>>TRACEY: Good morning!
I am Tracey Stuckey-Mickell, better known as Dr. Trey by my students.
I am going to talk to you today about my saga,
my journey of flipping the classroom in my Intro Stats course.
I don't have a PowerPoint or anything; I just have that title slide up there.
I do have a handout; it's on the table right there.
That is basically an outline of talking points and a little bit of information for you,
so that you can read along a little bit.
What I'll do is talk about the story behind this flipping experience.
I'll talk about how I use reflection in my teaching in order to figure out what to do
about this issue that I was having with the course, and then about my decision to flip
and then the whole process and next steps.
So: the story behind the flip.
I started teaching Intro Stats in the summer of 2011.
You know, I taught Stats the way I've been taught stats.
You lecture, the students take notes, they do their homework or whatever,
and that seemed to make perfect sense to me.
Well, there was one issue that I didn't expect.
I have a background of being a little bit math-phobic, believe it or not.
What happened through grad school is that I really worked hard in all my stats
courses and worked really, really hard to overcome the fear that I have of math,
or anything associated with numbers. So I felt like I had overcome it.
I worked hard, I got good grades in my stats courses, I understood things, and it was fine.
So I figured that when it was time to teach it, it would be no big deal.
Well, not so much!
[ LAUGHTER ]
Once I started teaching the class, I noticed that the students were very anxious.
It's an Intro Stats class, a lot of times it's required, and no one wants to be there.
So they're anxious, and they're upset about being there, and with all that anxiety,
my own anxiety started to play a role. It made me very uncomfortable.
So what happened was that I taught the class,
I barely slept, they didn't feel confident about learning,
and it was a horrible summer--one of the worst summers I've ever had.
I was very nervous all the time, I used to pray really hard in the morning before
I would teach the class, and no matter how much work I put into the lectures and activities,
it still just seemed like nothing worked well.
So, after that horrific summer, I sat down and said,
"OK. If I ever teach this class again, I've got to do something different."
So I started to try to figure out what the issue was.
One thing was the anxiety, there was a lot of anxiety.
It made for a very tense instructional environment,
and I knew that that anxiety had to be addressed.
I knew that something had to be done about all of this negative affect.
I knew that was an issue. I wasn't sure yet what to do about it,
but I knew that it was a problem.
Another problem was to address my own anxiety, and to find how I could teach
this class in ways that made me feel more prepared than when I last taught it.
So I started investigating different ways of teaching.
I started this investigation when I took the CRS workshop with OTEL-- Educational Technology.
It was really focused on teaching online or hybrid courses.
I wanted to figure out some different ways that I could address these students'
needs and my own needs a little bit better.
So, in the process of taking that workshop, I discovered this idea of flipping the
classroom, and I said, "This might actually work."
So, basically, I decided that I would go ahead and explore.
Could I do this? Would this work?
I felt like it was a big risk. There weren't many people around here doing it.
I had only heard of people doing it in middle school and high school environments in science courses.
It seemed like the content wouldn't lend itself well to it, but I wasn't really sure.
So I said, "Well, let me just think about it."
So I thought about it, I thought about the content, I thought about what I could do to make it better,
and I decided that I would take the risk and go ahead and try to flip my class.
One thing that I needed to do was to change the way I addressed the content.
I needed to get away from so much focus on the mathematics,
and move to a focus on the applications.
After all, being in a Stats course for education research is a continuation of our
Introductory Research Method scores. This is part 2 of the sequence.
We should be focusing more on how this stuff is actually used in the research process,
which is something that we often don't do in Stats. We tend to focus on
the theories, the concepts, and the mathematics-working the problems and so forth.
We get away from what we actually use it for.
So, I wanted to implement that. And to address the anxiety issue,
I thought, "What if I tried to infuse more humor into the instruction?" Humor is my thing.
Whenever I have a problem, I tend to come up with really bad jokes
and figure out ways to make myself feel better.
It works a lot! It spreads to other people--you know, laughter is contagious.
So I thought that would probably be a good way that I could do it.
So, once I decided to flip, I said, "Now I've got to figure out how to do this."
I knew I needed technology, because my lectures needed to be put online,
and my homework activities needed to be done in class.
So, the whole structure of the course had to be changed.
The lectures had to be scripted, because there's no way possible that you could
speak well and record a lecture without scripting it. So, that had to be done.
I didn't know which tool to use. We had several here at the college.
Adobe Connect is one, Camtasia is another one that could have been used.
I knew Camtasia, I didn't know Tegrity. I knew Adobe Connect and I had used that a lot,
so I was like "Okay, I don't need to learn anything new, I'm going to go with what I know."
So I chose to use Adobe Connect.
I also decided that I would choose a different textbook.
That's not to say that the other textbooks that I had been using were bad.
There was nothing wrong with them, they were great; matter of fact,
very informative, just not humorous. So where does one find a humorous stats book?
Well, let's see if we can get this going again...
I actually was able to find one. I'm going to show you a website for this.
This particular book is by Andy Fields.
It is called Discovering Statistics using SPSS, and he is hilarious.
The first-not even the first chapter, the preface of the book, I was laughing.
I had never seen a stats book that made people laugh,
so I decided that maybe this might be worth investigating.
And then when I found his-now this is his companion website,
which is really good, it has lots of excellent materials.
SPSS instructional videos if you want to use that to help learn how to do the
procedures and things in SPSS, the book has all of that.
So it's a one-stop-shop for everything that you need.
He has his own website called Statistics Hell.
[ LAUGHTER ]
I had to warn students that this may be a little offensive.
I hope not, because the idea is to be humorous.
I did use this website, I sent the students to the site
so they could learn more about Andy Fields and the work he has done.
His book is actually an award-winning book, so there are lots of resources here also.
And some of his interesting humor that he uses in his writing is also there.
That is the book I chose. I decided to go ahead and go with Adobe Connect,
because I had used it before--it wasn't the best tool for the job though, Tegrity is better.
It is an actual caption tool, so it has features in it that Adobe Connect does not really have.
But I was trying to go for something that I can get done quickly.
I was already worried, so I was like "let's just keep it simple."
I decided not to use a webcam, because I really didn't want my face on the screen.
They don't need to see my afraid, terrified eyes and everything looking at them
while they're trying to process this information.
I figured my voice explaining, along with the visuals that I used-- a lot of them came
from Andy Fields' materials-- worked perfectly good enough.
Another thing that I used was also a graphics pad. This is called the Tooya Pro.
What it is is a pad with an electronic pen that allows me to annotate the visuals.
This hooks up to the computer, and I can write different things on the slides as I'm
talking about whatever I'm talking about. I bought one of these to help me as well.
So basically, once I had everything I needed, then came the process of "okay, how do
I organize my material? What do I need to give the students?"
I knew from researching the flipped model that I would need a way to keep students
accountable for watching the lectures at home, because they could just not watch them.
And that would be a problem because in class they would be doing homework,
so how would they be able to actually do the homework if they hadn't had any contact
with the content prior? So it was important to figure that out.
So I needed to structure ways for that.
I needed to also figure out ways to make my homework more application-based
and less procedure-based in terms of working the math problems.
I wanted them to have a conceptual treatment but also apply those concepts in
terms of real research. So that is like the design process that I went through.
Sequencing the information-I wanted to build on what our book covered.
But our book also didn't always cover everything I wanted to,
so I had to bring in additional information.
So I did all of that to get ready.
Once I got it all figured out, then I took on the task of developing materials.
So I had to script everything. Boy that took a long time.
For a lecture that could be split into 5 parts, 6 to 8 minutes of video per segment,
it would take me 8 to 10 hours to script that. 8 to 10 hours to script it.
So it was very, very time intensive. In my scripting I didn't even go for perfection-
some people script things and they won't want to sound odd, they don't want to
cough, they don't want to say "Um" or anything like that.
I decided I wanted the lectures to feel more conversational, so I didn't worry if
I coughed or said "um" or if I happened to be sick.
I get a cold sometimes when I'm working really hard,
so if I sounded stuffy I would say "I'm sorry I'm stuffy today, bear with me.",
the same as I would do if I were giving an in-person lecture.
So I wanted it to be very natural.
And because I was reading I was even more concerned about it being natural.
But it took a lot of time to put those materials together, sequence them, then decide what to say.
But one thing I can tell you that was a benefit, and I will get more about the benefits later.
One thing that helped me out a lot is as I had to explain these things and actually
write it out, it made me recognize where things would be probably misunderstood.
So it was easier for me to see that, having to write those scripts out,
say "Oh you know that, after I wrote that, they're not going to understand that..."
So I have to go back and re-write that, and figure out a way to explain this more clearly.
So that helped me a lot with recognizing the spots where the explanation was not clear.
And even things from our text, recognizing where those things were not really
clear and I needed to bring more information.
The scripting actually helped me become a better teacher in terms of how to hash it out;
to explain it in ways that made more sense.
Another thing that I did as part of my development process, I mentioned holding the
students accountable. I had to come up with a way to get them to interact with the
content and make sure they were actually doing this.
So I gave them a set of questions that are basically factual-type questions. They were
short answer questions where they had to watch the videos and answer the questions.
So it gave them a chance to actually write down things they learned about in the
videos. I also encouraged them to watch videos with partners, don't do it alone,
make sure you are engaging in the lecture, the same if you would if you were in class.
So I tried to make sure that was understood. Another thing that I wanted to do to
create accountability and interactivity was that I gave them a list of discussion-a
discussion forum on Carmen-and what they did there is that they were able to take
the different topics, and while we were working on the topics they could ask questions there.
I would ask them to post those questions no later than 9 am the day of class. I would
go get those questions, type out those answers to them. Sometimes I would get
visuals from other books, other places, and we would go over those answers in class.
So that would help me give them better answers to their questions, but also it held
them accountable for asking those questions. And they didn't have to do it in class
where they might be shy or uncomfortable about admitting they don't know something.
It was an anonymous question board, so that worked out well.
The last thing was developing what used to be called homework, which would be
the practice activities that took place in the class. I implemented this twice,
and I will talk about those implementations, but that part is tricky.
It can be tricky because students are at different levels-some of them are well-
skilled at statistics, others not so much and are very afraid-so how do you design
a practice activity that meets the needs of all these different people?
I'll talk more about that. So once I had all my materials done, which I really didn't
have them all done in advance-I had half the class done by the time we started and
I worked on the other half as we progressed through the term.
I was ready to go enough, I was like "I got enough, I can keep up, we'll be fine".
I still ended up spending a lot of time, when I did finally get it implemented it was the next year,
summer of 2012. I was working 10 to 12 hour days again, simply because it was summer.
We had to do this in, what, seven weeks? So it was extremely crunched,
and we had long class meeting times.
We had them twice a week, and they also had lab. So it was challenging, but this time
instead of getting up in the morning and saying prayers, I would get up and I would
review the lecture that I did. I would listen to the video myself, I would look at my materials,
and I was very relaxed. I'd go to the class, and the atmosphere was completely different.
It was so much better.
What we did was we would have our first-there were two meetings a week-
the first meeting we would have them go over the burning questions they had.
So I would post the document up, because I would record the answers to those
questions.
And I also distributed that to them so they could keep that, and I would go over the
self-study questions that they had to answer as they watched the video.
Then we would start our practice activities. I usually had individual activities that
students should do alone, and group activities that sometimes would build on what
they had just done in the individual activities.
So we would start those and then we would finish that up in the second class
meeting of that week. In the summer it was a little bit more smashed in that we
would do almost a topic per class meeting, but in the fall I was able to break that up
across a whole week, so that was nice.
At any rate, what I did do also that I didn't do before was that I let students know at
the beginning that in a video-an actual sample video lecture-that it was the first
day, what we watched in class.
I let them know this was how much time you need to be prepared to commit to this
class. That's something I think a lot of students didn't really get in the summer.
They expected that they would listen to me talk about it, and they would get it, and everything would be fine.
Stats is not like that. Stats is not a spectator sport. You have to do it in order for it to
stick in your mind, you have to keep doing it. So I needed to drive that home to
them, that was an important thing to tell them right at the beginning.
I also told them that this model was going to be different, so you can come and say
and I'd love for you to try it out with me, but this is basically going to be different.
So I wanted them to know in case they didn't want to take it, they could drop it and
take it with someone else. So those kinds of things were important when I first
implemented the class.
I implemented in Summer and Fall of 2012. Of course summer was like learning, it
was my first time, it was awesome, the students really enjoyed it. I got some
feedback to help me fix things for the fall.
Then of course more learning took place for me at that point.
At that juncture I'm thinking "Okay, I've done it twice, what do I need to do next?
How can I determine if it was successful?". I want to talk about some of the things
that came out of it, I'll talk about the challenges first.
I want to leave you with positive things, so I'll talk about the challenges first. I also
call challenges "opportunities". I never look at a challenge as a problem, if something
is not going well it is an opportunity for me to figure out how to fix that. So I call
challenges "opportunities".
One thing that came out of the fall class that didn't come out of the summer class,
was that the practice activities were not really rigorous enough for everybody. The
summer people were fine, but I think it's because it was summer and they had to
process this stuff twice as fast as everyone else.
In the summer the activities felt perfect for those students. I didn't get one
complaint about the materials being too easy. But in the fall, they felt like it was too easy.
Some of them actually complained and said "you know, we needed more rigorous
practice activities", so that's something that needs to be addressed. Also, how can I
better encourage them to take control and be accountable for their own learning?
They still felt like they expected me to do more. I had one comment in the fall that
said "I think that flipped model gives her a license not to teach". I said "Did the
lecture fairy do all that scripting? Who did that work? The lecture fairy came and
dropped those scripts in my lap. That's what happened, I didn't do it!"
Thinking to myself "Really?"
But I found that that was an interesting comment, and it made me think about what
student's expectations are when they come to class. They really expect you to teach
them, but really teaching is more of an interactive type of process where the learner
has more responsibility than the teacher.
I remember when I first started teaching, within in the first couple years.
A very experienced teacher told me once, she said "If you're doing more work than your
students, there is a problem. You already know the content, they should be doing
more work than you. If you're doing more work than them, something's wrong."
At any rate, that comment let me know that they weren't really grasping the idea
that Stats wasn't really a spectator sport. So I needed to figure out a way to drive that home.
No one came to see me. No one came to meet with me at office hours or said,
"Hey, Dr. Tracey, I don't get what you said about standard deviation."
No one came. Not one time.
That is an issue. So, I'm wondering how I can get them to be more accountable and
take initiative. So when they don't understand something,
come talk to me about it.
They didn't ask as many questions either, in the burning questions list, as the
summer students. The summer students had lots of questions, and the fall students
had hardly any, in comparison. So trying to figure out ways to do that.
Another thing that would be great to do would be to find some ways to better assess
things, in the moment, in class. As they are working on their activities, I need some
informal assessment in order to find out where they are. Since they won't come to
me and ask me questions, I need to find a way to get that out of them. You know -
how good is your understanding of these topics?
So that's another thing that needed to be done.
And then - I have a TA for the lab - you know? Just not used to working with TA's . . .
I didn't realize that that is something one has to learn.
[ LAUGHTER ]
When you're used to doing it all - you know what I'm saying? I mean - it's like my
what - twelfth or thirteenth year of teaching, and I had my first experience working
with a TA in Summer of 2011. I had never had a TA - never ever - I did it all by
myself! So it was weird.
And summer - I really did not work well with the TA. I worked a little bit better in
the fall, but I still see that there's more opportunity for me to figure out ways to
better make the class cohesive with working with a TA and integrating our activities
a little bit more. She did a great job - all the TA's for stats are fantastic, but as far as
getting us to work well together - in terms of making that cohesive - is what I needed to work on.
Benefits - this is my favorite part in talking about this! One thing that happened -
and I knew this would happen - is that the anxiety level was lowered. We didn't
have so much tension in there, we didn't have all this fear . . . we didn't have all of
that. People were relaxed, they were talking we were laughing. Part of it was that
book - the book is awesome and I actually have the book if anybody wants to take a
look at it, you know just pass that around . . . it's heavy!
[ LAUGHTER ]
It's a pretty big book. I have an e-Book so I very rarely carry that in my backpack
because I have one on e-Book- and I encourage my students to get an e-Book as well.
So there was a lot of humor, a lot of relaxation in that class - and I think that's better
for learning to happen. So that was helpful.
Another thing that was helpful, that I did not expect, was that my English language
learners - those students for who English was a second language - had the scripts
and they were very happy to have the scripts to read along, so it helped them with
their English processing. So that was something that I didn't realize that they came
and told me about later that was really helpful - to have the scripts, the images and
then the video to listen to as I'm explaining.
Another thing that was helpful was that the videos allowed the students to process
the content without having to take notes - they didn't have to do that. They could
just listen - and then they could control the delivery of it. So if they needed to stop it
or start it - to watch it over how ever many times they needed to - they could do
that. They could watch it in a group, they could pause it, discuss . . . all those things
that could not happen if we were working in class with a live lecture.
So that is a huge benefit.
Another thing too was that burning questions list - it gave me a lot more
opportunity to give them thorough examples and thorough answers to those
questions - way better if we were standing in here live and you asked me a question
- I have to try to think about it you know - on the spot. So that was better - for me
and the students. Because I was able to really get into the answers to those questions.
And then the last thing that I felt - and I think this is probably one of the most
valuable things about this model - is that you get a chance to really teach in the
classroom. Instead of standing and lecturing - kind of like what I'm doing right now
- my time in the classroom, especially that second half of the class time -
was walking around, sitting down with small groups of students saying, "Okay - how are
you guys doing?" And somebody would be like, "I really - I'm just not getting it."
And we would talk, and I'd give more examples and go to the board, I would draw
something, we would laugh, you know.
So that became a moment for me to actually teach for real - not just stand here and
say 'blah blah blah, blah blah blah' you know? So that is valuable - and we worked
on application, we had students coming up with their own examples for things -
which helped to really drive these ideas and concepts home - so it was very helpful,
to have that kind of in-class you know . . . 'real teaching' and learning.
That's when it really happens - when people practice.
I remember when I studied instructional design, one of . . .
Thank you.
One of the things they always used to say was, "Telling ain't training. Telling ain't
training!" So if I stand here and just tell you some stuff - I did not really train you?!
Okay. You have to do it - and then we're talking about real learning taking place.
For me - that's when the learning actually happened - when we were able to apply.
So . . . I don't have anything else to tell you - but I do have something to show you if
I still have time. Do I still have time?
Okay - good. That was a lot of talking!
Okay - well I can show you one of the videos, I actually . . . pulled up a . . . just took
the link - luckily we're still . . .we still have our Adobe Connect server here in the
college - because this is getting shutdown and we're all transferring our Adobe use
to the university's license. But we still have this up - so that way I can still show this
without re-recording it.
[ VIDEO BEGINS ]
>>TRACEY: Now, this one is around 9 minutes -
and my instructional design friends say that it's too long.
>>VIDEO: The mean, the mean can be thought of as a statistical model.
I find it kind of an interesting concept to think of the mean as a statistical model.
It is indeed true that the mean does not have to be an actual value in that data set,
and it’s also kind of a way of summarizing data.
Then think about when we compare two group means, in fact we’re sizing up the
scores of each group with each of those means. And of course the mean is probably
not the exact score of every individual member of that group, right?
So in essence it is a model, or likeness, of the two scores.
How do we determine if the mean is a good fit though?
Well we determine how well the mean, the model, can be fit into the data.
Let’s talk a little bit of review about what the mean is.
Now remember the mean is the sum of all the scores divided by the number of scores.
I put the formula in here for you to illustrate conceptually where the numbers come from.
Keep in mind that this little doo-dad here, and these right here,
are kind of extra, even this is kind of extra.
But this just lets you know we’re talking about one case,
and this (n) just has to do with the number of cases.
So basically without those three you could still say the exact same thing.
We pronounce this guy here as X bar. That’s are symbol for sample mean.
Now here’s another example. There’s some data here that came from the example in our text.
We add them up, divide them by the number of scores,
and then we have the mean of 2.6 for that sample.
As you can see here the mean is a model and not a perfect representation of all the data.
If you look here, here’s the data. And here’s the mean, here’s X bar right here
We can see that it’s not the same, no not at all. But there is a likeness of that data set.
>>TRACEY: OK. That gives you an idea. Now, I was reading, so I hope that sounded more
conversational. I was reading that script. And I didn't always do it exactly-
sometimes I would transpose a word and I was like, "Oh, that's not what I meant to
read. But it still worked out ok.
I used that pad to annotate and draw their attention to different things. So, when
I would post the video, I would also post it on Carmen under each topic.
If you look at these slides here, you can see that I would have a title slide and then
I would go through and talk about everything.
When I had to make another segment, it would be part 2. I would use another tittle
slide and then I would introduce that segment.
My instructional design friends would say, "15 minutes? Tracey, no. You need to do
5 minutes." And I thought that was too short! So I got it to 7-8 minutes.
You know how many segments you would have if you did the lecture in 5 minute segments?
It's ridiculous. And sometimes it was hard to find a good breaking point at 5 minutes.
So I really had to practice chunking a lot. Sometimes I would do a good job, and
sometimes I would forget, and I would script it all and I would go through and
I would say, "Oh, that's too long, it's 12 minutes!" And I would have to go back
through and split it up again.
So that process is why it took so long to script things, because I would realize after
I started to record things that it wasn't going to fall within my time limit.
So I did that those first few times, but after a little while I knew how much script
I would need. So, towards the end, the videos came out much better than at the beginning.
I ended up re-recording a lot of the ones at the beginning when I taught the class the
second time, because I didn't have that sense of how much script would equal 5, 6, 7
minutes. So that was a learning process.
So I would give them this, and as you can see, at the bottom is the actual script.
So, the script that went with each slide was at the bottom. And when I scripted it,
I would print this out. So I would have the slide on my screen, and I would have my
script in front of me.
So that way I could just read, and use my little pad over here on the side. It was like
driving a stick shift! [ Laughter ] You know, you have to use both hands and both feet?
But it worked well. Once I got used to it, it worked really well.
Another thing that they got was this document, which actually has the script again,
except all at once. So this is the piece that the English language learner students
liked. They were able to just print this out and read along as the video progressed.
So they had that.
So, each one of these bullet points was a different slide. Each one of these was a
different slide-each one of the Roman numerals.
At the end of this document are the self-study questions that they would answer as
they listen to the lecture. So they got those things.
Then the practice activities-here's the one for statistical modeling. We use these
diagrams a lot, these little deviation diagrams. You didn't get to see the video that
has them in it and I talk about what they mean. I had them actually construct those
diagrams, so they can understand what we mean by a deviation score and what we
mean by the difference between the mean value and the observed data point.
I wanted them to understand that. All of this builds up to the meaning of standard
deviation. All of this is background.
I remember studying that myself, and I have to say that it wasn't explained that well
to me exactly what it is. So when I got a chance to do it myself, I wanted to make
sure that they knew exactly what it is that we're talking about.
It's really not a very complex concept. It's quite simple. But, without the background,
you don't get the full gist of it, so that you know what you're looking at when you see a standard deviation.
Anyway, that's what the practices look like.
That's an independent practice.
This one is a group practice.
A lot of times, they would build on each other. In this case, they did the group
practice first. They used these data points that are listed here to do the individual practice later.
We tend to end up doing more than one practice in a session. A lot of times, we
would use authentic types of examples. You know, "Researchers A and B have this
question about this, here's the data that they collected..." And then have students
answer questions about that or figure out what the next steps are or analyze and
interpret the output that these fake researchers came up with. That kind of thing.
So that's how the practices work. They can work independently if they want to, but
I encourage them to work with someone else. Even though some of them are independent practices,
I still told them that they could feel free to work with a partner if they didn't get it.
For the groups practices, though, I really encouraged them to work together.
This is the document that has the questions. The questions would be in red-it was
anonymous-and I would type the answer.
I saw an online FAQ tool that would be neat to put this in, instead of a Word
document. But I'm so nervous about tools like that disappearing, and I would lose all
of my stuff. So I like my Word document right now.
So what I do is just put the question up exactly as they wrote it, and then I give them
an answer. Now, I wouldn't be able to give them an answer of such detail in class.
If they asked that question in class, there's no way I would be able to do all of that.
There's not enough time, and I'm probably not going to think of all of that in the moment.
But because I was able to read that question and see if I could find an answer that
was really good outside of class and then give them the answer in class, that was
helpful for both of us. It was really good and allowed me to help them better.
So, those were the materials that I used.
So-next steps. Now I know how to use Tegrity, which is really easy to learn-
There's a workshop next week, next week right? Next week they have a Tegrity
workshop at the same time.
I would encourage you to go if you're interested in learning. It's way easy, way, way easy to use.
So I'm going to re-record all of my videos in Tegrity.
That's why when we were talking about- I was talking with the EdTech team about
downloading them and I had some trouble I was like, "Don't worry, I'm re-recording them all."
Re-recording them does not take nearly as much time as scripting them. If they're
six minutes, it's going to take me six minutes to re-record that.
You know what I mean? It's not that bad.
Scripting them, however, is another story.
So that's the next thing I need to do. I need to shorten them to no more than eight
minutes. No more than eight minutes. And that's going to be challenging because
I will have to tweak some things in order to make that happen.
I want to revise the practice activities too so that they're more rigorous for students
who are more advanced. Maybe create a little more detail in those. Maybe increase
the number of questions that are asked, the number of concepts being addressed in
each one. Just figure out a way to make them more rigorous.
Also, figure out ways students who are more advanced can actually work ahead if
they need to, without making the whole class move with them. That was another
issue that was- it's kind of tough to manage that, but I'll figure out a way for that.
And then my informal assessment techniques. I may do some different little in class
quizzes or things like that to assess where they are so I'll know, have a better handle
on, what concepts they're not getting. They won't come to me on their own. I have to
figure out a way to make them come to me and tell me what it is they need.
And then also ways to hold them better accountable. Gone is the day that we can use
that 'banking approach', I don't know if anybody is familiar with Paolo Freire's work,
I read all over the place. The idea that the teacher stands there and spits it all out to
you, you ingest it as a student and then you give it back to us; we need to get away from that.
Students need to understand I'm not the fountain from which all rational thought
flows. You have a say, you have a stake in your own learning, so take it and be empowered.
So I'm trying to find ways to encourage that kind of different shift in the way
learners think about their own learning. Especially in this class, because you have to
practice and you have to work. It's not going to be just transmitted to you just
because you're here, and you're awake. [ laughs ] There's gonna be some work involved.
At any rate, if anyone has questions about anything I'd be happy to answer them.
Yes ma'am?
>>QUESTIONER 1: I wasn't here right when it started, I came in a little late, so I
wanted to know if you could go over the story behind this.
>>TRACEY: Well, what happened was I taught this course for the first time Summer
of 2011 and even though I had years and years of teaching experience I'd never
taught a stand alone STATS course before. I taught bits and pieces of STATS and
research methods before I came to OSU.
I had been here for a year at that time. What happened was it tanked. Some of the
worst feedback I'd ever gotten. I mean there's only been two semesters in my life
that I got feedback that hurt me so bad I needed to just- I wanted to jump out of a
window. It was January 2004, Spring of 2004 and Summer of 2011. [ laughs ]
And I taught my first class in 1999 so I was doing well with feedback. But they didn't
have to give me feedback to know that the class just wasn't working. I didn't want to
come into work. I would get up in the morning and I would say prayers and I would
be sick to my stomach, it was just horrible.
Part of the reason is because I admittedly am math-anxious. I've always been that
way ever since I was about twelve. I thought I had overcome it because I worked
hard all through school and did well but learning it and being able to do it for
yourself is different from teaching it. [ laughs ]
So my anxiety was compounded by their anxiety and I don't know, introductory
STATS is one of those courses no one wants to take. So they come in there already
with an attitude, a chip on their shoulder, their being forced to take this STATs class.
Half of them think their not smart enough to do math, which is something we get
driven into as kids.
So all that anxiety, mixed with my own, it was a mess. I mean it just did not go well.
I would lecture and they would ask me questions. Sometimes they would ask me
questions like, "Why do they call it a histogram?"?
[ audience laughs ]
And I would say, "This is not the history of statistics, this is applied educational
statistics. Why are we talking about-". You see what I mean? It got to a point where
I just felt like we were antagonizing each other. [ laughs ]
It just was not a good class. I'm not, I don't have an ego problem, when it goes bad
I'm the first to admit, "Yeah, that went bad, that tanked." And I wanna have fun,
I want to enjoy my job and I want to do well and I want to do a good job for the
students we serve.
After that class when they asked, "Do you want to teach it again?" I was like
[ disgusted noise ] and my Mom, she actually teaches statistics as well, she told me,
"Don't you let that class beat you." [ laughs with audience ] I said, "Mama, can you tell
me this after I recover from being sick or whatever it was that took me out that
summer." I was like a wreck at the end of the summer.
So I decided I wouldn't let it beat me and I would try to figure out a way to fix it and
this is the way that I fixed it. It's better, I mean don't get me wrong, it's still not my
favorite class to teach, I'm not gonna lie. They don't want to be there. It's hard to
work with people who don't want to learn, who don't want to be there.
So it's not my favorite class to teach but it's by far much more fun and much better
than it was and I think the Flipped Classroom is the reason why it's better.
And the book. Again, Andy Fields is hilarious.
That helps take the anxiety down, it's all going to be okay, that kind of thing.
>>QUESTIONER 1: So is the class half of the time actually in the classroom and the other time-
>>TRACEY: No, the outside time that they spend on the lecture does not reduce class
time. We just change what we do in class. So instead of having lecture in class and
homework at home, they do homework in class and lecture at home. They still have
homework to do and that is watching the lectures.
When we come to class we talk about the questions that they have, we work on
practice activities, which normally would've been homework but now we're doing it
in groups in class. It just gives me an opportunity to really work with them, both in
small groups or sometimes individually, in ways that normally we wouldn't have
that interaction. We would just lecture and they would have to go off on their own
and do those problems. Do you know what I mean?
It does not reduce class time, it changes what happens during class time.
Yup.
>>QUESTIONER 2: How did you find out about the Flipped Model?
>>TRACEY: Well, I'm a little bit of a techie, so I'm always looking out. I follow people
on twitter, I'm always looking out for new things.
I don't remember how I learned about it. I think someone sent me something on
Twitter or somewhere and it was about these two guys who, I forget what school
they were from, they were high school chemistry teachers and they paired and
decided- well, they started recording lectures because they had students missing
class and the students were missing a lot.
So they started recording lectures. Then they started to record them all. They had
them on CD and stuff at first.
That model's actually not new, in researching this I found some articles back from
the nineties and they called it the 'inverted classroom'. You remember this?
It's not new, it's just that back in the nineties the technology wasn't advanced
enough to support this. I think in one of the articles I read the student experienced
so many technical problems that it took away from the learning. Technology should
never detract from learning.
It should enhance, if it does detract you shouldn't be using it. It defeats the whole purpose.
Now with streaming video we have enough bandwidth to have people access, get the
videos- we don't have to distribute CD's, though that's not a bad idea- it definitely is
helpful now with the technology.
So I think that we can do some things with it.
I just had a colleague tell me in a meeting on Monday, I was talking about this and he
was saying how he's doing research to explain why we should not flip the classroom
[ laughs with audience ] I cracked up and I said, "Please do the research." I am not
afraid to be criticized or critiqued. This is not perfect. As I told you, there are some
challenges in things that need to be addressed.
Some students won't like it. I had a student say, "I liked Dr. Trey's class, she's a great
teacher, I just don't like the Flipped Model. I want to do the lecture in class."
That's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. But generally speaking I think that in-class time,
when we are working, we should be working. We should not be sitting,
listening passively or struggling furiously to take notes and write down every little
thing I'm saying. You know? [ laughs ]
Telling ain't training. Does that answer your question?
>>QUESTIONER 2: Yeah.
>>TRACEY: No problem. Anybody else have a question?
Yes?
>>KELVIN: Outside of the videos that you said were too long, what other lessons
learned are you taking away from this?
>>TRACEY: Um, one huge lesson is: never underestimate the time commitment.
>>KELVIN: [ laughs ]
>>TRACEY: Because I barely slept over the summer. When I was first doing the
scripting I did not sleep and I got sick, a lot, because I- hey, once you get over a
certain age you can not do all-nighters and not get sick.
So I think when you're doing anything like this where you're using a lot of
technology, you have to overestimate the time you're going to need to actually
adjust you're materials, or use the technology tools or whatever.
Because you're probably going to need more time than you think. So that was a huge
lesson learned.
Another lesson would have to be don't expect the students to always "jive" with
taking control of their own learning. I was really surprised at how many people just
really did not come with their questions.
I would say it. I would say, "Nobody has any questions? For real? For real, nobody
has any questions?"
I would say, "Are you sure, you sure you don't have any questions?" [ laughs ]
I did it in a teasing way, a fun way but I was serious. I'm like, "Come on now, you
guys come to my office hours." Nobody would come.
I have to do more to encourage that or to require it because it's very clear when I did
their- and they had a midterm and a final. Those are the other graded things. There
are also the group practices, all the practices and the study questions were all graded things.
But we went over the answers in class, so I didn't have to score them because we did
them in class. They still got credit for having done them. The real assessments were
the midterm and the final.
When I got to the midterm nobody asked me a question, everything was good.
But then I got their midterm and I was like, "Stop playing."
They did not know this. So that's the reason I want more informal assessment going
on in the classroom so that I could remediate on going. That was, sometimes that was shocking.
I'd be like, "Why, we talked about this! What do you mean you don't know it?
What is this answer? Oh my god!" [ laughs ]
So it was a lot of that happening, especially with the first exam. The way it's kind of
structured is all the foundational stuff, like understanding what sampling variation
is, understanding standard deviation, understanding central limit theorem, all the
foundational stuff was covered the first half of class. The first half of the term.
The second half of the term was the techniques. The T test, the correlation, all the
other stuff, the techniques. They had to know the stuff from the beginning in order
to understand how to interpret and use the stuff at the end.
So it was kind of important that they got it. What ended up happening was I did
make notes of how people did not do well, like the things they didn't do well,
so when we started up that second half I would go back.
You will see if you watch the videos, you'll hear me going back, "Now remember
from so and so, go back to the video on such and such because this right here is
important from before.
I will re-explain it really briefly and site page numbers and all kinds of stuff,
because I'm thinking, " They didn't get this so they're not going to be able to get this."
I did try to do it that way and in class I would bring it up, those things that I knew
the students just didn't- they didn't seem to understand it. They thought they did,
but they really didn't.
So, figuring out a better way to do that is really something I have to do. Yeah.
I can't think of any other lessons that I didn't already talk about. But those are the
main ones--recognizing that there is a paradigm shift, I think.
Still. I thought we were past this point, but we're so not. [ laughs ]
Yeah?
>>QUESTIONER 3: Were there any that you thought would not work with the class.
How universal was the model?
>>TRACEY: This is based on just my limited experience here, but I would only use
this model in classes where there are lots of things that need to be applied.
Practical use types of things-not simply conceptual understanding, but also application.
I'll give you an example. I would not use this for my adolescent development class.
We do a lot of discussion, talking about how these theories and things apply to our
lives, in an effort to fully understand how we can use them when we are working
with young people.
But that, for me, is not hands-on enough in order to do it the way that I did it before.
We don't really have a lot of application type of activities, or homework where they
actually have to solve problems.
We don't have that in that course. So, if the course is heavy with problem solving,
or applications, then that is the kind of content that lends itself to this kind of model.
That's why it makes sense that a chemistry course, or other kinds of science,
or mathematics, would be better for the flipped model.
I actually thought about doing it with my research methods course.
I teach Intro to Research Methods. That's another course that everyone loves to take. [ laughs ]
They give me all of the classes that people don't want to take. [ laughs ]
I go in there and say, "How many people love research?" About two hands go up.
Then I say, "How many people think they might be ok with it, but they could take it
or leave it." A few more hands go up.
Then I ask, "How many people hate it?" Most of the hands go up.
So I tell them, "It is my duty to make sure that by the time that you leave here,
you will at least be ok with it. You won't hate it, you will have respect for it,
and some of you will love it by the time you leave."
Then I thought about flipping it. I realized that we needed to talk about this stuff.
We need to talk about what we mean by "methodological rigor." I can't just talk at them
with that. What application activity are we going to do to drive that home?
There wasn't an easy way to drive those things home.
So, it's better if we talk about it, and talk about individual people's research
questions. Let's talk about how we make that methodological choice. How do we make that rigorous?
How do we make the outcome believable? That's conversation-that's dialogue.
You can't do dialogue very well in terms of what I'm talking about. I wouldn't flip a course like that.
Now, I'm teaching that course online in the summer. So, I will do my lectures online.
But we will still meet to talk about their individual research questions and
problems, and to share our ideas in class. We'll do it live. We still need to do that kind of thing.
So, I didn't like it for that kind of class. But because that's so practical, it made it
easier to come up with activities that we could do in class.
Did I answer your question? That was probably more than you needed.
Any other questions?
>>QUESTIONER 4: You said that that model may not work in Intro to Research
Methods, and in your Adolescent Psych class. In the flipped model we're really
trying to move the in-class lecture time to out-of-class time. So, if we go from there,
do you think that there's enough content that we could move, like in adolescent Psych?
>>TRACEY: Oh yeah, I think we could. In Research Methods we definitely have
enough content we could move. I could do that. But what I've found that happens
during lecture is that we get into discussions about things, and that can't happen in a
recorded lecture. You see what I mean?
So we would lose that, and I don't want to lose that.
If I had to rate which class would be better for the flipped model, I would say that
Research Methods would be better than the Adolescent Development course.
There's very little lecture in there. That was by choice. I have a Psych background,
I majored in Psychology. We had a lot more lectures than what I do.
But what I've found is that the best way to learn psychological theory is to apply it to
yourself and others around you. And I've found that the best way to do that is to talk about it.
So, discussion, where dialogue is important-those courses are probably not the
best ones to flip. But the courses where we really get down and dirty with applying
concepts, those are the ones that lend themselves better to the model.
Intro to Research Methods is kind of a combination of those. I could probably flip
that class and be successful, but it wouldn't be as easy, in terms of conceptualizing
what to do with the in-class time as in the Stats class.
That was an easy jump to make, considering what we were going to do in class and
what the homework problems were going to be. That was very easy with the Stats course.
>>QUESTIONER 4: So do you think you'll do a partial flip?
>>TRACEY: Yeah, that's probably what's going to happen when I teach it online.
I want to record some of the lectures-I have to. We won't meet for all of the class
time-they'll have some activities to do already.
But we will have some live class time where we'll meet online and be able to talk
about questions that they have pertaining to their own research questions and
interests. I don't want to lose that discussion piece, because people need to talk
these things out.
That's the thing about research methods-there are a lot of thinking shifts. You have
to think differently than you used to, and that's why dialogue works best. I need to
hear what you are thinking, and we need to talk about that.
If it was flipped, there would not be as much dialogue. It wouldn't be as clean as the
Stats class. The Stats class was conceptually easy to flip.
Anything else?
>>QUESTIONER 5: What's your Twitter name?
>>TRACEY: You know what, I'm going to put it up here for you. I'm a huge Twitter-er.
Well, I actually listen more than I tweet.
That's it.
>>QUESTIONER 5: I see you're not following the College of Education and Human
Ecology on Twitter!
>>TRACEY: I thought I was! I know I follow somebody from OSU. But maybe not us
I guess I should follow us.
I love Twitter. I get it on my Kindle, so I can always check it.
Now, I'm not on Facebook that much. My family always uses it-they all live far
away, so it's really important for me to find out what's happening with my son and
my mom and everybody. So I'm on there some, but not as much as Twitter.
I read more on Twitter. I don't Tweet as much, but I read a lot.
Anything else?
Well, thank you so much for coming! I hope that this was informative.