Encouraging student engagement

Flipping the classroom

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects.

This program provides a great way for teachers to reach and support the needs of all students today. It is designed to provide a supportive and engaged learning environment, therefor allowing students to gain confidence within themselves. 

I see the flipped classroom as more of learning the curriculum required material at home by the use of video lectures. In this setting, the teacher frees up a lot more time during the day for creative discussions and applying the topics to relevant problems. I feel that, in this way, the teacher can actually make more of an impact on students by showing them ideas rather than concepts.

Lectures that can be viewed more than once may also help those for whom English is not their first language. Devoting class time to application of concepts might give instructors a better opportunity to detect errors in thinking, particularly those that are widespread in a class. At the same time, collaborative projects can encourage social interaction among students, making it easier for them to learn from one another and for those of varying skill levels to support their peers.

The beauty of these ideas is that students get to self-drive their learning. By self-engaging and learning at their own pace and in their own ideal environment, students can start to become producers of knowledge, instead of consumers of knowledge.

My translation class is usually quite large and consists of approximately 100 students, who are coming from different countries and regions. The students have different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and language proficiency is very diverse. Traditionally, a translation class comes across as one in which the teacher was the sole speaker transmitting knowledge to students who were eager to find the answers to their questions from the teacher. In such classes, students usually translate a text for discussion chosen by the teacher. Students read their translations one by one, and the teacher passes comments on student's translations and finally the best translation is presented by the teacher to the class. Moreover, students often try to capture what is being said at the instant the speaker says it. They cannot stop to reflect upon what is being said, and they may miss significant points because they are trying to transcribe the instructor’s words. By contrast, the use of video, for instance, video clips from YouTube which reflects the culture background for the translation text, and other prerecorded media puts lectures under the control of the students: they can watch, rewind, and fast-forward as needed.

However, the flipped classroom may not always yield positive results. Although the idea is straightforward, an effective flip requires careful preparation. Recording lectures require time and effort on the faculties’ part, and out-of-class and in-class elements must be carefully integrated for students to understand the model and be motivated to prepare for class. As a result, introducing a flip can mean additional work and may require new skills for the instructor.

Some students, for their part, may complain about the loss of face-to-face lectures, particularly if they feel the assigned video lectures are available to anyone online. Students with this perspective may not immediately appreciate the value of the hands-on portion of the model, wondering what their tuition brings them that they could not have gotten by surfing the web.

Another disadvantage of relying on video lectures, is that students may have little chance to explore any cultural and contextual background information. Therefore, they can not translate in a communicative context, and basically regard the task as purely academic and impractical.

I see the idea of a flipped classroom as a great start in that direction. I truly believe, by integrating this new environment, we will see the change in the learning habits of our students.