Abstract:

The popularity of flipped classes in a large number of academic fields suggests support of the active learning (AL) instructional paradigm which stipulates that the central key to learning is the learner’s taking responsibility and control of his/her own learning by going beyond passive listening through engagement in some instructional activity, like reading, writing, discussing or solving problems, followed by reflection and consequent engagement in higher order thinking tasks [1]. During the past decade, published literature on flipped undergraduate mathematics classes has been meagre in contrast to documentation available on flipped high school mathematics classes, which however, is mostly in the form of blogs, media articles on the web or online newsletters.

This paper provides a narrative of an intervention which, under the framework of the AL paradigm, used a trial of flipped lessons designed to enhance learning in an undergraduate algebra course through out-of-class lecture videos followed by in-class problem-solving with discussion and practice exercises. This experience report documents the reflective process of engagement as well as the challenges faced by both the instructor and the 28 students in attendance during the 4-week mid-semester trial. Preliminary results of the in-class written examination on the topics covered during the trial period suggest positive impact of the flipped lessons pedagogy on achievement level. Feedback, both through the online survey as well as through some informal oral declarations, affirmed student satisfaction with the integrated video lectures which they felt facilitated increased understanding of the procedures covered and which they could view at their own time and pace. Finally, although design limitations in this small trial experiment do not allow for large-scale generalizable conclusions, these preliminary findings provide sufficient encouragement to proceed with an extension of this study into a larger comparative research endeavour to substantiate that implementation of a flipped class pedagogy using integrated videos does in fact enhance learning in this undergraduate algebra course.

Keywords:

Flipped classes, active learning, video lectures, undergraduate algebra.