Abstract:

Many colleges and universities struggle to support under-prepared first-year mathematics students (Cox, 2015). A flipped classroom model is a promising approach to address at-risk, higher education mathematics students because it allows for increased interaction and support within the classroom after students have viewed instructional videos at home. However, previous research is somewhat limited with respect to examining in-class pedagogy in a flipped classroom. The purpose of the current study was to examine a specific set of in-class strategies used after students viewed content-specific and skill-based videos outside of the classroom. Specific in-class pedagogical strategies included making connections between mathematical ideas explicit (Cox, 2015), focusing on rich problem-solving tasks that support multiple solution strategies (Hooker, 2011), encouraging peer-led collaborative learning (Cafarella, 2014; Cox, 2015; Hooker, 2011); and using diagnostic and formative assessments (Rehak & Mckinney, 2015). These strategies were tested with two mathematics classes of university students (n=68) in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology. Half the students enrolled in the course had failed or withdrawn from the course at least once; the other half were new students in the program. After employing technology to flip the classroom and combining this with supportive in-class pedagogy, 91% of the students (n=62) passed the course with an average grade of 76%. An end-of-course survey indicated that over 90% of students rated their overall experience with the course as very good or excellent, with a mean score of 4.5 on a five-point Likert scale. On average, students rated the following in-class strategies as being helpful to very helpful for supporting their understanding business math concepts: collaborative problem solving, support from in-class tutors (pre-service teacher candidates), and written feedback on assignments with Likert scores ranging from 4.1 to 4.5 on a five-point scale. Student comments on the open-ended survey questions were consistent with the quantitative ratings with most comments referencing the in-class collaborative problem solving approach and the support of the in-class tutors as helpful for their learning.

References:
[1] Cafarella, B. (2014) Exploring best practices in developmental math. Research and Teaching in Developmental Education, 30(2), 35-64.
[2] Cox, R. (2015). “You’ve Got to Learn the Rules”: A classroom-level look at low pass rates in developmental math. Community College Review, 43(3), 264–286.
[3] Hooker, D. (2011) Small Peer-led collaborative learning groups in developmental math classes at a tribal community college. Multicultural Perspectives, 13(4), 220-226.
[4] Rehak & McKinney (2015). Utilizing course evaluation data to improve student learning and success in developmental math courses. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 39(2), 199-203.

Keywords:

Flipped Classroom, undergraduate students, mathematics, students at-risk, pedagogy.