Flip? Reverse? Teaching?

For some reasons, math teachers seem to change their classroom behavior because of popular media … perhaps more than we do based on cognitive psychology, learning theory, and research.  It’ as if we think “a million ‘likes’ can’t be wrong” … and , as if we think that there is something new about the structures of ‘flip teaching’ or ‘reverse teaching’.

In a typical flip-teaching structure, students get their lectures outside of class time.  Class time becomes mostly individual work and small group time.  People who use this model report that it is popular with their students, and I have no doubt that this is true.  The anecdotes also tend to report that students are more engaged; I find this part a bit humorous — the structure pretty much demands more student activity.  I would bet that we could generally increase student ‘activity’ just by not talking. 

There are some questions about ‘flip teaching’ that are really questions about what we see as the goals of learning in our classroom.  Are we about basic skills?  Mastering procedures?  Reasoning?  Application?  Seeing a coherent whole?  I find it sad that we are drawn to structures that direct students towards the smallest aspects of mathematics instead of the largest.  We tend to worry a great deal about whether a student will be able to perform a known procedure.  (And, yes, I know that there are such things as high-stakes testing which tend to reinforce this bias.)

Flip teaching is a new name for an old idea.  My first teaching experience was in a program where developmental classes were run like that … students used materials before class time for instruction, and we focused on questions during class.  Originally, this program was individual classes in this format and eventually we blended all classes in to one large program.  I generally observed that students would mimic procedures, often without understanding — the same problem that we find in other classes.

Flip teaching is not a solution for learning mathematics.  If you need a new structure for motivational purposes, flip teaching can work for a while.  While you have this ‘break’, think seriously about real solutions that help the learning of mathematics.  You won’t find these solutions on YouTube or KhanAcademy … you will find them in AMATYC and NCTM and MAA and other professional groups.

I will point out that the emerging models — AMATYC New Life, Carnegie Pathways, and Dana Center Mathways — all have a focus on the learning environment in the classroom with the faculty “facing forward” (not reversed).  We use resources outside of class time, and we also emphasize directed activities during class to build understanding of mathematics.  Faculty are professional designers of learning experiences.

 
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