Abstract
This paper defines flipped learning and then examines its practical implementation in AS and A2 level physics classes, that is, classes for 16–18 year olds. The effect of this teaching style on student learning behaviour and its impact on test results are evaluated. The paper recounts the difficulties of implementing it and evaluates student preferences. It concludes with comments about this teaching style's appropriateness for various groups of students and identifies those for whom it is not suitable. A list of useful websites is included.
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1. Flipped physics
In February 2013 I was called in as a late substitute for an A-Level physics teacher on long-term sick leave. While the content of the specification was familiar, the style of delivery was new, I could not simply pull my old notes and activities out of storage. I also wanted to enhance the students' study skills, to make them capable of teaching themselves if they had to. Flipped teaching has been covered extensively in the teaching press recently and with only two shared classes to teach I had time to spend on extra preparation. Could it meet the needs of my new groups of learners?
Writing in the Times Educational Supplement (TES), Darren Evans defined flipped teaching: 'Students are given videoed lectures to watch at home and in class the teacher sets work that would usually be given out as homework. In this way the classroom is "flipped", with the lesson taking place in the teacher's absence and the actual applied learning happening in the classroom, with the added benefit of the teacher being present to help facilitate it' (Evans 2012).
Many of the teachers experimenting with this idea are making their own videos, but I decided to use existing material from sites like Phet and YouTube. For a typical lesson, I found appropriate, relevant online videos or activities and distributed a list with URLs and the learning objectives for the session to the students. I also posted the learning plan on to Moodle, the school's virtual learning environment (VLE), so the students could avoid copying long URLs into their browsers. The students were told to make notes on the videos and then bring them to the next class and use the ideas to tackle problems during the lesson.
In practice, the usefulness of the students' learning behaviour was mixed, like any other learning activity. The best students produced neat, well-ordered notes and were prepared for the lesson. Weaker, less diligent students produced chaotic notes or nothing at all. They did not recall the key ideas, were not equipped for the problem-solving lesson and, importantly, did not realize they were underprepared. Meanwhile, the most hard-working students had no calibration of the quality and depth of the work they were doing, which they found disconcerting.
To overcome this, my instructions became increasingly prescriptive. I began to specify exactly what notes were to be taken and which examples should be included.
Other problems arose with this style of teaching. The school's 'net nanny' blocked all access to YouTube for students and some videos could only be accessed from home. This was a significant problem for one student who lived in a rural area and had only dial-up internet access. According to an article in the TES, 850 000 children in the UK do not have internet access at home (Lee 2012). There is no quality control for internet videos and I spent much time watching videos that started well—using the Angry Birds game to introduce projectile motion, for example—before sliding into incorrect terminology or imperial units. A final, unanticipated problem was the origin of most of the videos and interactive sites I used. As American syllabi appear not to cover particle accelerators or special relativity internet video coverage for these topics is very limited.
On the plus side, I very quickly got into conversations with a new batch of students about what they did to help themselves learn and how effective their choices were. American Advanced Placement (AP) physics programmes are not afraid of calculus and one site1, takes the American equivalent of sixth-formers right through to Maxwell's equations.
After five weeks of finding out how to make this style of teaching work, I decided to try an objective comparison of flipped and traditional learning styles. The topic of work was taught using the flipped style, while the related and similar topic of power was taught in a teacher-led way. The class was small and close to exams, so splitting them to test the different styles was not practical and it would have been unethical to teach part of the class in a less effective way.
For both topics, student learning was assessed by before and after tests based on a mix of GCSE and A-level multiple-choice questions. The results were analyzed by subtracting each student's 'before' from their 'after' score and then finding the mean percentage change for the whole class. The students' mean improvement for the self-taught topic of work was 6.0%, less than a grade at AS. For the teacher-led topic of power the mean improvement was 11.6% across the whole class, slightly more than a 10% nominal AS grade boundary. The flipped learning result conceals a larger spread of learning outcomes than for the traditional approach. Five people did worse on the second work test than on the first, but this style of teaching also produced improvements of +33% and +37%. My traditional style of teaching for power only produced two people who did worse, but the two biggest improvers only gained 28%.
These quantitative data were supported by a survey of student opinion. The group was asked to rate every learning activity I could think of for effectiveness and enjoyment and was given an opportunity to add any I had missed. They rated the activities on a three point scale: . These ratings were translated into numerical grades of +1, 0 and −1 for evaluation; 12 students produced responses to this survey.
Taking notes and working through problems in class were rated as highly effective learning strategies by the students and they were also considered enjoyable. Watching videos was considered the least effective and least enjoyable classroom activity, scoring −5 for effectiveness and −4 for enjoyment. Going through homework was considered moderately effective, but not very enjoyable. Practical activities were not considered to contribute effectively to learning and were rated neutral for enjoyment.
Out of the classroom, 'working through problems with friends' rated much higher for both effectiveness and enjoyment than 'helping friends with homework'. Watching physics videos in their own time rated −4 for enjoyment and 0 for learning effectiveness. Strangely, watching videos and taking notes rated only −2 for enjoyment and +2 for learning effectiveness.
Visiting science museums and attending public lectures were both considered enjoyable, but were not thought to be effective learning activities. This was also true for 'watching physics documentaries on TV'. Public physics lectures are unusually frequent in Cambridge and the Cambridge Physics Centre lectures are specifically promoted to this group, but only one student attended regularly, accompanied by a supportive parent.
For revision, the students found working through past papers and comparing their answers with mark schemes to be highly effective and fairly enjoyable. Copy–cover–check–correct style revision was least liked. Activities that used language skills, such as sorting sentences into a logical sequence, were heartily disliked. All the 'enjoyment' scores were markedly lower than those for 'effectiveness'.
Nine students out of 12 also described their motivation in answering the free-response question 'what motivates you and really makes you want to do well?'. Of those, three were motivated by subject content and challenge, for example 'Results, enjoyment of the subject, to do it further on'. The rest were motivated by external factors, usually positive, for example 'Dreams about future life. Desire to succeed'. One student was motivated by parental coercion.
2. Conclusions
It is impossible to draw definitive conclusions from such a small sample size, but impressions can be formed. It appears that flipped learning is effective for able, motivated students. It seems to develop their independent learning skills and promotes a thorough, effective study of the specification. It provides an easy way to offer stretching topic-related material to high-flying students. It is my opinion that for these groups it offers better preparation for university than traditional spoon-feeding. For students on distance-learning programmes, teaching themselves or stuck in a hospital, it adds extra texture to a diet of printed words.
Flipped learning appears to be less advantageous for students who find physics ideas difficult to grasp and benefit from the supportive input of a patient teacher. It does not seem to improve students with poor motivation or who struggle to organize their time outside lessons.
The time spent previewing internet videos cannot be reduced, but searching for every video on every topic was a time-consuming process. There is great potential for resource sharing among physics teachers, perhaps in the format of a YouTube-style 'PhysicsTube' website which sorts the great quantity of material out there by topic and then by popularity (as a simple substitute for quality). It could also act as an archive for the great videos that PTNC users share with each other. An open access site would enable interested students to access useful material.
3. Resources—the websites that I used
The most famous online tutorial site, soothing or soporific in style, depending on your taste.
Similar to Khan Academy in its 'writing on a board' presentation style, this site adds a head-and-shoulders shot of teacher Dan Fullerton and is livelier and more engaging as a result (figure 1).
Figure 1. Free body diagrams with Mr Dan Fullerton. Reproduced with permission from http://aplusphysics.com/courses/honors/videos/FBDs/FBDs.html.
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Standard image High-resolution imageMany, many neat physics simulations, suitable for A-level and done with a touch of humour.
Index of many simulation and teaching activities, sorted by topic and level (figure 2).
Figure 2. Throwing a package from a plane. Reproduced with permission from www.compadre.org/OSP/items/detail.cfm?ID=9972.
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Another 'writing on a board' site, also with a mug shot of the teacher. The physics is not as reliable as aplusphysics and khan.
Site with links to entertaining and useful videos, but many of the videos are hosted on YouTube with all the access problems that this implies.
www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips
A huge reservoir of short, classroom-friendly clips from the BBC. A-level standard material is limited.
http://home.web.cern.ch/about/accelerators/large-hadron-collider
This is the website of the organization where the web was invented, good for information on particle accelerators.
Home of many physics videos among the silly cats. There is no quality control: caveat emptor.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to staff and students at Netherhall School, Cambridge for their help with this project, especially Mr Ally Davies.
Footnotes
Biographies
Maria Kettle has spent 18 years working as a teacher of physics and electronics, mostly in the post-16 sector. She currently works as the outreach officer at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, and can be contacted to discuss interactions with schools: outreach-officer@eng.cam.ac.uk