This Changed My Teaching: Transforming Large Classes into Interactive Learning Environments

In the first of a three-part series called This Changed My Teaching, a team of UBC Linguistics instructors spoke about how a programmatic initiative in their department to redesign their curriculum using a flipped classroom model has changed their teaching and is changing the learning experience for their students.

The event, which took place during Celebrate Learning Week, started with a brief history of the Linguistics project, which began a year and a half ago and was funded through the Flexible Learning Initiative. Dr. Lisa Matthewson, chair of the Linguistics Curriculum Committee, shared with the attendees the main reason for switching to a flipped classroom model: “It was a challenge for them to keep students engaged in large classroom settings.”

According to Dr. Martina Wiltschko, a Linguistics professor, flipped classrooms are trying to combat learning environments where instructors are seen as “pouring the knowledge into the student,” while the student remains a passive listener.

Sonja Thoma, a teaching assistant and graduate student in the department, argued that the flipped classroom aims to foster independent critical learning and cultivate students’ learning. She maintained that the goal of their courses is to “foster students’ responsibility for their own knowledge…for their own lifelong learning, when they come out of the undergraduate degree.”

Sonja added that the flipped classroom is “ideally suited” for faculty members who are passionate about teaching and want to create a safe and enriching learning environment for their students.

“The flipped classroom allows you to embrace the teacher…because the best teaching happens when you are interacting with the students,” Martina said. To that end, she created e-lectures for her Linguistics 100 class so that she could spend more time interacting with students in the classroom. Through the experience of making the videos, Martina was able to move away from traditional textbooks and connect with the subject material in a way that worked better for her.

“I was able to give a mini-lecture exactly the way I wanted it to be, not dependent on a textbook that I was not fully subscribing to,” Martina said. Rather, she was able to focus on just the topics and materials she felt her students needed to learn. This way, her students could come to class prepared to discuss the topics she was teaching through her videos.

Martina added that, while her materials are available online, the human element to her teaching is still irreplaceable. “We’re not teaching the information. They can get the information elsewhere,” she said. “We want them to be able to connect the information in relevant ways.” That is where the teacher comes in.

Dr. Evan Ashworth, a Teaching and Learning Postdoctoral Fellow in the department, credited the flipped classroom learning environment with allowing the instructor to “get in the trenches” with the students. “It’s analogous to asking a person who is learning to play a sport to learn that sport just from the referee…they don’t have a coach to guide them,” he said of a more traditional format for teaching and evaluating students.

In one strategy that Evan mentioned, students are traditionally evaluated through “high stakes writing”, or assignments that get weighted the most, such as essays and final reports. He encouraged the use of “low stakes writing”, or writing assignments that have the purpose of reflecting on course content, so students get a grasp of the type of writing required for that course. He said this incorporates “writing to learn – the idea that writing is not just an end, it’s an actual means of learning itself.”

Additionally, Evan used Wikipedia projects to gauge student learning. The students’ task was to develop a Wiki stub into a full-fledged Wikipedia page, so students from around the world could learn about that particular topic.

Dr. Henry Davis, who has a background in street theater, spoke to his experience with performing while teaching to create a more engaging learning environment. “I love clambering about…and going all over the place,” he said. Furthermore, he explained the importance of allowing his students to use creative means for submitting assignments.

For his Linguistics 100 course, he decided to get rid of the final exams and poster sessions that were typical of the course. Instead, he replaced those assessment methods with performance-based evaluations. Students produced a wide variety of projects, from puppet shows to advanced videos. Some examples of videos included rap battles and Disney movie adaptations that explained linguistics concepts. Students who weren’t as comfortable with public speaking could take behind-the-scenes roles, such as costume and set design. “I think these students went away with a considerably larger grasp of basic stuff…than they would have had they been sitting in an exam,” Henry added.

The presenters concluded that the best part about their experiences of transforming their teaching with this project is that it has allowed them to combine technology and human interaction to create an environment that is fun and enriching for both the instructors and the students.

To watch a video of the event or to consult resources related to the Linguistics project, please visit the Flexible Learning website.

This article was published in the December 2014 CTLT Newsletter, Dialogues. Below is a list of articles included in the issue: