The Flipped Classroom

Scenario

For the past two weeks, Kyle has been taking a flipped

course in designing food gardens. Before he attends each

class, he watches videos of short lectures recorded or

recommended by his instructor. Each lecture comes with a

brief online quiz that offers him immediate feedback on

whether he missed any essential points. Today as he enters

class, he glances at the schedule on the whiteboard. For the

first half hour, teams will discuss how the content of the

video lectures on microclimates, insect predation, and

disease control will inform their team projects. Professor

Dalton circulates among the tables to see if anyone has

questions.

 

Kyle’s team will be repurposing an area the size of an urban

backyard into a visually appealing garden that is also a

functional food source. It’s part of the larger class project to

reclaim a strip of city land by building a demonstration food

garden. “I think we should bring in disease-resistant

blueberries, grapes, and pome fruits,” says Coleen, looking

at the rough drawings they have made so far. Dalton stops

to look over their design. “Check the nursery catalogs on the

front table,” he suggests. “Disease-resistant strains are

clearly marked in their listings.” As they search the catalog

and discuss which diseases might be a problem in dwarf

apples, pears, blueberries, and grapes, Kyle enters their

cultivar choices in their Google Docs space. They are turning

to a discussion of microclimates and plant placement when

a chime signals discussion is over.

 

In the second half of the class, team monitors each retrieve

two flat boxes from the front of the class. One box contains

a stack of pins and various leaves preserved in plastic. The

second box has a foam insert topped by a paper grid; each

square is labeled with a nutritional deficiency or a disease

common to food plants. During the next half hour, each team

is to identify the disease or nutritional deficiency and pin the

correct leaf in the right spot on the grid. Dalton is on hand,

directing attention to clues and sometimes challenging their

choices.

 

As he leaves, Kyle reflects that the hands-on activities have

given him a far better grasp of the information and more

confidence in what he has learned than he could have gotten 

from an in-class lecture.