Flipping with a jigsaw, part 5

Part 5: Student perceptions and performance

Of course I was nervous about how students would take to this dramatic departure from traditional classrooms. If nothing else they would not be spacing out in class. So during the first and last mental health days (I put them into the schedule to give the students a break from the Jigsaw, and to allow me to use some of my favorite class activities) I passed out a brief assessment of their attitudes toward the flipped/Jigsaw format.

The first question asked them if they would like to stay with the flipped format or go back to the traditional format (I stressed that switching was a real possibility in the first wave of data collection). Here’s what they said:

That is, all of the students said they preferred the flipped format in the first wave, and nearly all (13 of 15) said they preferred it in the second wave.

I also asked two questions that asked them to compare the flipped course with other traditional courses they’ve taken. One was about how hard they are working in this class, and the other was about how much they were learning in this class. The results:

In words, this means that they felt this class was about the same as other courses in terms of difficulty, but a majority felt they were learning more in this class than traditional courses.

I asked three overall evaluation questions. One was about how much they enjoyed the flipped format:

It’s hard to see in this figure, but it’s a 5-point scale. So a total of 3 responses indicated something less than 4 on a 5-point scale.

The other two questions were copied from the teaching evaluations we use at EKU (IDEA): teacher excellence and course excellence:

These data are consistent with data I typically get when teaching this course in the traditional way.

I also asked three open-ended questions: one about what they like least about the flipped format, and one about what they liked the most, and one about what they would like to change about the flipped format. The criticisms centered on the necessity of moving around so much during class, and how long the video presentation were (they’re correct; some are 25-30 minutes). Many students had no criticisms or suggestions for changes. When I showed my Chair the comments about what they liked the most he accused me of writing them myself. Some were admittedly amazing:

“Smaller groups allow me to ask questions about something I don’t understand whereas I wouldn’t ask if I had to in front of the whole class.”

“I am actually learning quite a bit and the format keeps me motivated.”

“You control your grade, it is dependent on how you study and what you put into it.”

“I like that I am learning more and retaining more. It also takes the stress of tests away so I can focus on learning and understanding the material more.”

“Being on equal ground with others. Makes it easier to understand at times.”

Overall I am very pleased by these results. My flipped class is not seen as a blow-off, and the students seemed to appreciate the purpose of the flipped format. I was concerned that I would take a hit on my teaching evaluations because of the novel format. These informal mid-term evals were encouraging, and my official (IDEA) teaching evals were almost identical to the previous time I taught the same course in a traditional format.

Unfortunately it is not possible to make direct comparisons between the traditional and flipped versions of my course in terms of what my students learned. While many questions from the exams in my traditional course found their way on the quizzes in the flipped course, the overlap was not complete. However, I can report that the distribution of final grades did not differ substantially:

These data contain grades from the past 6 times I taught the class using the traditional format (total number of students = 162), and just one flipped class (N = 28). Perhaps a slight skew to higher grades in the flipped course, but not dramatic (for the stats-philic, the average final percentage in the traditional course was 78%, 83% for the flipped, t = 0.22, ns.).

These data are not ideal for assessing what students learned in class (nor for what they might remember a year or ten later), but they are the best I can get. This is certainly a frustration when comparing teaching methods generally. And you can forget about random assignment. But overall my fears were unrealized and my hopes largely fulfilled. And that counts as success in my book.

Next up: Conclusions and suggestions