Flipping Classrooms – Working Students
Research and ideas in education that made me sit up
Quintin Cutts
School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow
PTASF – 26-6-13
Seating position
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
Dweck's Mindset
• Belief: A person's ability at a task/subject…
– can grow
– is fixed
growth mindset
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
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…
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.)
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
Flipping the Classroom
Lecture
Homework
First
Exposure
(easy stuff)
Was it
understood?
(hard stuff)
Lab
Exam
Traditional
Homework
Lecture
First Exposure
and practice:
With resources –
easy stuff
Learn Hard Stuff:
With teacher and
peer discussion
Practice
Knowledge
Mastery
Lab
Show Knowledge
Mastery
Exam
Flipped
Practice Show Knowledge
Knowledge
Mastery
Mastery
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
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.
Used Chi's Active-ConstructiveInteractive 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
Passive
Active
Constructive
Interactive
Other
16
79
5
0
Non-PI
5
67
24
4
PI
0
3
12
85
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
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
– 
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!
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Perkins, K. and Wieman, C. The Surprising Impact of Seat Location on Student
Performance. The Physics Teacher, 43. 2005.
Dweck Mindset, 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. 41st ACM
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, ProblemBased, 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 StudentCentred 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.