Dr. Rebecca Carruthers Den Hoed and joerdis
on the Blended Learning Pilot in the Writing Program
Teaching Centre: What motivated you to redesign your WRIT 1000 courses into a flipped classroom with team-based learning at its core?
RC: It all started the last fall when I began teaching the Writing 1000 courses. A lot of students showed up wanting to do well, but most would glaze over after the first five minutes of a traditional lecture. They would ask strategic questions about what they “needed” from each lecture, for an assignment or exam. But they wouldn’t otherwise engage with the material. Upon reflection, I realized that if I were a student in the class, I wouldn’t really care much about it either. I would probably have considered the course a hoop to jump through and nothing more. As a result, I approached our program coordinator to ask if I could experiment with some non-traditional teaching approaches in the classroom.
What I wanted to try, because I had noticed varied skill levels in the classroom, was to incorporate a flipped classroom and active learning into my teaching. If I lecture in class, I have to slow down the whole class to accommodate students who are struggling, or I go too fast when I pace the class to accommodate more advanced students. My idea was to post lecture materials online to accommodate students with differing skill levels. Online, students can judge for themselves how much and how fast they need to cover the material they are looking at. If I lecture in class, I also have to deal with the students’ general anticipation that I will ‘fill them up like sponges.’ My idea was to encourage more active participation in class through team-based learning, which requires students to actively work with concepts instead of me only lecturing about them. I think students learn more when there is pressure to show up to class ready to actively do something with the materials they have prepared for class. I was very fortunate to get the go ahead for that project from our program coordinator.
TC: What do you consider essential for the planning stage of a flipped classroom?
Time is an essential variable in this calculation. Ideally, if I were to do something like this again, I would set aside a term to thoroughly plan all parts of the project instead of the units as I go. Since I started teaching my first flipped/team-based class on short notice, I didn’t have much time to redesign the course, but I was willing to use the very short Christmas break to get started. The rest came together as I was teaching, which my husband called “building the ship as we were setting sail”. Not only was the design a big-time investment, I also needed support. I really wouldn’t have been able to do this without the special supplies and the encouragement offered by my program.
TC: What supplies are you referring to?
My department ordered a batch of special scratch cards to use for in-class assessments. As part of the work students do in class, they di