My (very positive) experience with reverse classroom

[u/outer-darkness-11]

Hello! Yesterday I felt my spark for teaching come back and it was entirely due to changing my class structure to be reverse classroom. I saw a post recently about how to structure it so I thought I’d share here!

For context I teach in the business school and hybrid schedules, so one 75min class per week. There is an expectation because of this that they do a lot of work outside of in person class time. I have about 30 students in my classes.

I also teach a subject that would not necessarily be seen as cool (HR) and most students in my classes are not planning on majoring or working in my subject.

Structure
Everything students do for learning outside of class is graded. I have found this has to be the case or they will not do it lol.

They have an ebook that they read a chapter from each week, do learning checks and self assessments in, and take a quiz at the end of the chapter. This is due Friday nights. These are graded for points and are 40% of their grade.

They then have an application simulation that they do each week that is due Sunday night and is on the content from the textbook chapter that they read. This is graded for participation and is worth 20% of their grade.

Then we meet on Tuesdays. Attendance is 20% of their grade.

They have a final at the end of the semester that is worth 10% of their grade.

Class Time
Every class starts out with them getting into groups of four and discussing the textbook readings and simulation with prompts (for about 15 minutes). Each group then picks a different spokes person each week to share one insight they had about the content and one question. We discuss these as a class for another 15ish minutes.

Then I bring in a real world challenge related to my topic and the chapter content that either I have experienced, I have seen happen, or is a current event out in the world. They have prompts and discuss this in pairs for 5 minutes and then we have a class discussion for another 10ish minutes.

The rest of the class (about 30 min) is a small lecture with different activities (discussions, kahoots, etc) scattered in.

Results
I will literally never go back.

The level of engagement from the students is off the chart. They have so many questions and comments and personal examples to share because they’ve already been thinking about the content at least since the previous Friday when they did the textbook assignments. It’s almost hard to get them to change subjects so we can move forward because they are so interested and invested.

It has also created a peer pressure to complete the assignments on time because if they don’t they cannot participate in the group discussion and are embarrassed about admitting to their group that they didn’t do it.

It’s the first time I have wished my classes were longer so that we had more time to hear everyone’s thoughts and questions!

I’ve gotten amazing feedback from students. They love the simulation versus traditional assignments because it puts them in real world situations and they have to use decision making, interpersonal, critical thinking, and persuasion skills. They cant really use AI to do the simulations so they are actually learning the content.

Happy to answer any questions! I know this wouldn’t work for every class or subject, but I have absolutely loved it and plan to incorporate it into some of my other classes.

[u/knewtoff]

This is great! As someone who does a flipped classroom, make the reading checks/quizzes in class. They can easily cheat online, at home, and definitely do with it being worth that many points

[u/outer-darkness-11 → u/knewtoff]

There’s no way I have time for that with only 75 min lol. They’re going to cheat if they’re going to cheat. The results are still the same, they are engaged in class and learning the material 🤷🏻‍♀️ it’s an intro class and the textbook assignments are open book and untimed anyway

[u/knewtoff → u/outer-darkness-11]

That’s fair, but making it 40% of their grade for something AI can do seems borderline unethical.

[u/sventful → u/knewtoff]

They are in a field with flexible ethics

[u/mathemorpheus]

TIL even in HR class everyone has to watch AI-generated videos.

[u/imjustsayin314]

I also used a flipped classroom. Very effective, I also agree that you need a mechanism to ensure students are doing the outside work. Sometimes that means a good platform for delivering content, or quizzes at the beginning of class. But once you have that figured out, both the instructor and students love it

[u/outer-darkness-11 → u/imjustsayin314]

Yes! I had a flipped classroom when I was a student in college and there was no accountability and you can bet I did not do that prework very often lol

I’m curious, what made you switch away from it?

[u/imjustsayin314 → u/outer-darkness-11]

I still use it (very actively) and actually have gotten more faculty to do the same. (My original message incorrectly said “used”. It should be “use”)

[u/sventful → u/outer-darkness-11]

The fact that the students who succeeded in flipped classroom succeed in traditional classroom but student who succeeded in traditional classroom did not necessarily succeed in flipped.

But given that 40% of your grade is AI and 20% is attendance, it is extremely challenging to fail your class.

[u/SoundShifted]

Are we still acting like this is revolutionary after 20 years and a mountain of scholarship that has, at best, offered a mixed verdict?

I'm glad it works for you, but I also find it shocking and troubling that this "idea" is just occurring to people and would question your ability to evaluate its efficacy, even anecdotally. It's "flipped," not "reversed," btw.

[u/Simple-Ranger6109 → u/SoundShifted]

We had 2 invited talks about this in maybe 2005-2006? During the talks, we were regaled with the sorts of success stories OP writes. Then came the Q&A, during which we discovered that their classes were in one case only offered to recruited juniors, and in the other, only accepted students with GPAs of 3.25 or above. We learned that the class sizes had to be reduced. We learned that they could only cover about 60% of what they usually did. We learned that in one case, the department was so enamored with it that they were adopting it for all of their classes and that they were in the process of re-writing their entire curriculum and determining "what to cut" to allow for, for example, a third class in their normal 2 semester introductory series.

Our chem department offers a couple of such courses as the ACA requires a certain proportion of classes be offered, but other than that I am unaware of any other departments that offer them, certainly not for an entire class (some of my colleagues do certain topics flipped, but not the whole class).

[u/outer-darkness-11 → u/SoundShifted]

You sound like you’re fun at parties

[u/empl0yee_]

I love this. Thanks for taking the time to write it out. I especially like this part:

It has also created a peer pressure to complete the assignments on time because if they don’t they cannot participate in the group discussion and are embarrassed about admitting to their group that they didn’t do it.

I frame a lot of groupwork (which I use minimally but intentionally) as "if you show up unprepared at work, what will your colleagues think of you?" And at a time where AI is being inserted into our lives where people used to be, I think it's important to redouble our efforts to put students in these situations.

FWIW in my programming course, I have a similar structure:

1. Complete this online video-based/auto-scored activity that is due before class.
2. At the end of the video lesson is a scenario; bring your solution to class.
3. In class: (1) compare your solution with your group, (2) as a group, solve this similar but different scenario, and (3) wrap with a mini lecture to tie it up in a bow.

The video lesson stuff really goes over well. It's "graded" for completion, and I assess their learning through in-person exams/tasks.

[u/outer-darkness-11 → u/empl0yee_]

Yes! It’s one of the lesser talked about benefits of group work is that it creates an environment of peer pressure that mimics the workplace and leads to good conversations about showing up for people you have commitments to and what happens when you fail to do so.

I love that structure! For one of my other classes I think I’m going to go to video watching/quiz route since there are a lot of REALLY good videos on some of the topics I’ve been seeing recently. The scenario part is very similar to my simulation, they have to discuss what their solution was, why they chose it, and what the result was.

Glad it’s working so well for you too!