Abstract:

Flipped classroom has become a current word in educational and pedagogical dictionary. Indeed, it represents a different method to organize the learning process.

“Flipping the classroom” is a way of teaching and learning in which students first exposure to new material outside of class, usually via video and reading lectures previous provided by teacher, and then use class time to do the harder work of deepening the knowledge contents, through problem-solving, discussion, or debates with the peers.

Today, Internet and tools of web 2.0 represent a great challenge to break the boundaries of classroom and make them an open, continuous, flexible, interactive learning environment, enabling the process of inverting the usual teaching and learning activities: more individual and receptive outside of class and more active collaborative and engaging in classroom.

Although the concept of flipped classroom comes from academic teaching, an application of “inverted classroom” in an introductory economics course in 2000 (Lage, M.,Platt, G.,Treglia, M.), an other application called Peer instruction, in a Physical course in 2001 (Mazura, E.). This model of teaching and learning is not often usual in Higher Education, especially in Italian universities.

We will try to present a pilot project in the course of statistics which follows students in the first year of General and Social Pedagogy Phd course.
The first aim is assess, whether with this methodology, students are able to obtain the benefits of learning. In particular, the method proposed in the course, conducive to learning proposed amount in progress, considering the strictly qualitative background of the students.
Then, experimental methodology in a small group will repeat in a degree program.

The advantage of the mode is linked to the structure of the particular area (e.g., mainly mountainous) and to the accessibility of the course’s contents by the student-workers.

The proposals focus on the use of practical tools but they are always interspersed with reflections on the prospects and problems , with a vision continually oscillating between detail and context.

The basic means of expression and co-operation consists of the blogs of the participants and the teacher , networked through the mechanism of web feeds.

Teachers have to fragment the content in small units and provide them via video lectures, reading texts and a list of graduated exercises in order to enable the students to assess their understanding of the statistical concepts and to underlines the problems emerging during the learning process.
In the classroom time, the teacher answers and guides the peer discussion to find explanations, s/he provides also a series of statistical data which represents a real context for problem solving stage.

Keywords:

e-learning, higher education.