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Ins and Outs of the Flipped Classroom
While I had some teaching experience as an undergraduate, walking into the University of Tennessee as a Ph.D. student has brought forth an all-new teaching experience for me: working in a flipped classroom. Much of what I understood about teaching and interacting with students was flipped on its head (pun intended) with a whole new dimension added. Now that I’ve reached the conclusion of my first year in the Ph.D. program, I want to break down the advantages and disadvantages of using a flipped classroom I’ve found from my personal experience, on top of recollecting the data-driven escapade that inspired the University of Tennessee to introduce flipped classrooms in the first place.
In addition to this, the university recently transitioned to conducting all of its classes online for the remainder of the semester to mitigate the damage of the COVID-19 pandemic, and this has introduced some extra challenges (and conveniences) to teaching my classes. I wanted to take the time to identify what effects teaching online has had on my flipped classroom. Specifically for this portion of the article I’ve been fortunate to have my friend and coworker Leigh Pearcy share her opinions on this matter. I’ll save the discussion of online teaching for the end.