Flip/Flop Course Design: A Secret Strategy for Successful Course Structuring
Greetings, GTC!
There is a gaining momentum to move away from the
traditional lecture-taught class and towards incorporating online tools and
teaching methods into teaching. During
the week 4 workshop entitled, “Flip/Flop Course Design: A Secret Strategy for
Successful Course Structuring”, facilitators Krista Callinan and Carly
Moore discussed what it means to teach a hybrid
course and flip flop course. Almost any course or activity can be made a
hybrid or flip-flop course, opening new possibilities for your course design
and approach.
Flip-flop courses take the lectures normally
presented in class and put them online and make class time for group assignment
work and discussions. This forces students to develop self-learning skills and
become proficient in finding and reviewing resources, which can be discussed in
detail in class as a group or as a debate.
This can stimulate conversations and thoughts that may never surface
during a traditional class lecture.
A hybrid course takes teaching normally done
face-to-face (lectures, discussions, office hours) and uses online tools to do
these tasks, ideally more efficiently, with either equally or better
results. This may include recorded
lectures broken down into 10-15 minute modules, with activities and quizzes
incorporated to be performed and turn in online. This can be followed up with asynchronized
group discussions on blogs. Combined
with assigned reading, students come prepared to class to learn about case
studies, give presentations, and find applicable uses for their new knowledge.
Benefits
1. Access to (open source) cutting edge, excellent
resources from around the world
2. Lectures and material can be viewed multiple times,
access to material is always available (as well as additional materials if they
seek them)
3. Enhanced students’ engagement, group work and self-assessment/testing
4. Must post questions/comments online forums (Tool -
Piazza)
5. Unlimited (with qualifications) class size
6. Online submission allows for better record keeping
7. More personalized instruction for larger courses (seems
contrary to what you’d think...)
Considerations
1. Should always provide link to original source of info,
rather than copying it
2. Open education resources are becoming more and more
widespread
3. Make sure students are comfortable with online
technologies that you use
4. Give students chance to practice their use of the
internet resources
5. Students can become heavily reliant on email for
communication – should direct them to a “discussion” tool
6. Be sure to prioritize pedagogy over technology
7. Development of material can take a lot of time and
effort
8. Ensure that the course experience is benefitted by the
hybrid design, not just replacing f2f content with online content
a. example: Putting a text version of your lecture online
as a resource. Does not take advantage of the online environment, just moves
the same content into a text format that could be read anywhere
9. Be conscience of ADA compliance: everything must be
represented in several ways
Here are some videos and resources that may
help you apply the flip-flop course or hybrid course ideas to your class
design:
1. Integrating online resources into your teaching: http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/learning-to-teach-online/ltto-episodes?view=video&video=241
2. Using online environments for teaching large classes: http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/learning-to-teach-online/ltto-episodes?view=video&video=271
3. Planning your online class: http://online.cofa.unsw.edu.au/learning-to-teach-online/ltto-episodes?view=video&video=219
4. University of Memphis Recommended Teaching and Learning Tools (See Below)
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