03A - Flipping A Mathematics Course, A Blended Learning Approach
03A - Flipping A Mathematics Course, A Blended Learning Approach
APPROACH
Ana Paula Lopes1, Filomena Soares2
1
Polytechnic of Porto (P.PORTO) / ISCAP - CEOS.PP (PORTUGAL)
2
Polytechnic of Porto/ESHT - ESMAD/CITH - uniMAD (PORTUGAL)
Abstract
Flipped classroom pedagogy has become popular in several different courses in Higher Educational
Institutions (HEI). Important advantages being the increased level of lecturer and student interaction,
which can have a strong impact on students’ motivation, engagement, satisfaction and performance. A
flipped based experiment was implemented in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 in a Mathematics Course, at
the Institute of Accounting and Administration of Porto (ISCAP), using Moodle quizzes reinforced by
in-class activities and support via PowerPoint with audio support, YouTube tutorial videos and online
reading materials before and after classes. In this new organizational design for the teaching and
learning paradigm, as its name transmits, there was pedagogical switch of the traditional academic
procedure as students’ first contact with the subjects and themes was made outside the “four wall
classroom bounds”. Teachers’ role was transposed into a kind of guide and facilitator, indicating the
way to go, avoiding to walk in a parallel path, or even ahead, but indicating the way to go, motivating
students in their own knowledge construction, letting them lead the way, following and supporting,
constantly and carefully monitoring their learning outcomes, only interfering in the learning process as
an anchor where students can rely, adjusting the right paths when they seem to deviate from the
predefined learning goals. Classroom time was consumed with open discussions, solving tasks and
application problems, clarifying the supporting fundaments, in order to improve students’ engagement
into their learning process in a collaborative environment. The operational stages and procedures will
be described and, additionally, several results obtained during its implementation will be presented.
Keywords: Mathematics; Flipped Classroom; Higher Education; Blended Learning; Video Lectures.
1 INTRODUCTION
Information and communications technology (ICT) have become an integral part of the teaching/
learning process in academic courses at Higher Education Institutions (HEI), opening the way for the
emergence of different pedagogical models like e-Learning, Blended Learning and the Flipped
Classroom. The flipped classroom method or model, was developed by Jonathan Bergmann and
Aaron Sams in 2000 [1], the pioneers of this “movement” (chemistry teachers, at Woodland Park High
School in Colorado at that time) who, in an attempt to counter the effects of student´s high
absenteeism levels, began to record their lessons and post them online, allowing students to access
them remotely. Therefore, the principal idea comes from reversing the traditional teaching paradigm,
where the main phases of the teaching and learning process such as classroom activities and
homework are reversed. The flipped classroom is then settled as a different course organization:
where instructional content (e.g., pre-recorded video lectures) is assigned as “homework” – analyzed
before coming to class – and in-class time is spent working on problems, advancing concepts, and
engaging in collaborative learning [2]. The flipped classroom may contain a big array of out-of-class
activities further than lectures, including readings, homework, and supplemental videos ([3], [4], [5]).
With this pedagogical teaching methodology, as theoretical/supporting materials must be delivered as
a “pre-class” tool for students to take and analyze individually, it is extremely important to examine
what “kind” of materials promote students’ engagement, as they must be responsible for class
preparation. In this sense, with all these inherent changes, instructors have been required to adapt
fast to this reality, creating and developing a substantial diversity of tools and resources to grab
student’s attention and to motivate them to support the knowledge in their own learning process
enthusiastically. One of the most engaging resources is the use of video lectures since, through them,
instructors can provide multifaceted information to students and, if used creatively, videos are a
powerful technological tool in the global and self-enrolment educational process [6]. In-class activities
become substantially different, including activities such as role-play, debates, quizzes, and group
presentations, amongst others [7]. In addition, the flipped classroom model allows the learners to learn
at their own pace [8]. On the outcome of their experience, Lopes & Soares [9] have shown how
2 BACKGROUND
Station Rotation
This model allows students to rotate through stations on a fixed schedule, where at least one of the
stations is an online learning station. This model is most common in elementary schools because
instructors are already familiar rotating in “centers” or stations.
Lab Rotation
This model permits students to rotate through stations on a fixed schedule. However, in this case,
online learning occurs in a dedicated computer lab. This model allows for flexible scheduling
arrangements with teachers and other paraprofessionals, and enables schools to make use of existing
computer labs.
Individual Rotation
The Individual Rotation model allows students to rotate through stations, but on individual schedules
set by a teacher or software algorithm. Unlike other rotation models, students do not necessarily rotate
to every station; they rotate only to the activities scheduled on their playlists.
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Flipped Classroom
The Flipped Classroom model flips the traditional relationship between class time and homework.
Students learn at home via online coursework and lectures, and teachers use class time for teacher-
guided practice or projects. This model enables teachers to use class time for more than delivering
traditional lectures.
Flex
The Flex model lets students move on fluid schedules among learning activities according to their
needs. Online learning is the backbone of student learning in a Flex model. Teachers provide support
and instruction on a flexible, as-needed basis while students work through course curriculum and
content. This model can give students a high degree of control over their learning.
A La Carte
The A La Carte model (Self-Blend model) enables students to take one or more courses entirely
online with an online teacher of record and at the same time continue to have other face-to-face
courses, which often provides students with more flexibility over their schedules. A La Carte courses
can be a great option when schools can’t provide particular learning opportunities, such as an
Advanced Placement or elective course, making it one of the more popular models in blended high
schools.
Enriched Virtual
This model is an alternative to full-time online school that allows students to complete the majority of
coursework online at home or outside of school, but attend school for required face-to-face learning
sessions with a teacher. Unlike the Flipped Classroom, Enriched Virtual programs usually don’t
require daily school attendance; some programs may only require twice-weekly attendance, for
instance.
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Figure 1. Flipped Model versus Traditional Classroom (Adaptation from [14]).
In 1956, the cognitive psychologist Benjamin Bloom [20] made public his famous Taxonomy of
Educational Objectives, commonly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy, developed for classifying learning
objectives in levels. Bloom’s classification included three areas of learning: cognitive, affective and
psychomotor. In his framework, he divided cognitive domain into six levels or categories, ranked from
the simplest and most concrete to the more complex and abstract: knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The first three levels correspond to concrete thinking,
while the top three fall into the field of creative and abstract thoughts. Anderson & Krathwohl [21]
revised Bloom’s original Taxonomy that resulted in the so-called Revised Bloom Taxonomy (RBT). In
this review, the categories were divided as follows: remember, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate
and create. In contrast to the original taxonomy, here the choice relied on verbs rather than nouns,
since these better reflect the active nature of the learning process. At home, with the student’s
preliminary study, they would work the first three areas from RBT – remember, understand, apply –
while in class more complex levels can be approached – analyze, evaluate and create (Fig. 2).
Therefore, the lecturer becomes a guide in the learning process while the student becomes the center
of it, thus having an active role.
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2.3 P.PORTO Online Mathematics Projects
All over the world, many students struggle when it comes to learning Mathematics. Researchers and
instructors all around the world suggest different methods, technics and models to learn mathematics
[22]. Having some background experience, given by the participation on some Mathematics Projects
developed at Polytechnic of Porto (P.PORTO), namelly:
• MatActiva Project – an Online Mathematics Education Project which aims to support and
enhance mathematics education, a kind of personalized learning platform in which students can
learn at their own pace several Math subjects ([23], [24], [25]);
• Math Without STRESS (M100S) Project – a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), which
consists of two different Courses, Probability and Combinatorics and Introduction to Differential
Calculus ([26], [27],[28]);
We have been concerned in creating a project of simple access, intuitive and with a set of useful
functionalities. The MatActiva project is structured in eight sections and each section contains
diversified material ranging different students’ needs and levels of knowledge. Among other areas, we
can find different resources in Linear Algebra, Financial Calculus, Statistics and Mathematical
Analysis. Among other, students may find:
• Theoretical elementary notes that help to consolidate necessary requirements to all the courses
from mathematics area;
• Syllabus - Program Contents covered in Mathematics Zero (MZ) (items from Elementary and
Secondary school);
• Tutorial Video Lectures about several Mathematics subjects, followed by exercises that can be
performed online, in which the student automatically receives the quantitative results, the
feedback for each question and a proposal for a comprehensive solution;
• Diagnostic tests – with several levels, according to the Elementary and Secondary Education
programs, that can be done online. They offer quantitative results and respective feedback to
the student which may have, automatically, a perception of their level of performance. Students
still have access to a draft solution step by step (currently MZ Issues Base has over 350
questions).
• Links to external webpages with mathematical resources that explore the different contents in
Mathematics.
• A set of multiple choice tests, true/false and matching. With these tests we intend to offer to
students, working instruments to promote self-regulation of their learning in order to help raise
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As we have already mentioned, all modules have similar structure, they present an ordered set of
video lectures where the relevant concepts are exhibited along with some illustrative examples. After
watching each video (playing and replaying it as many times as they please), students can take a
small quiz, with 5 random questions, and apply the concepts addressed in video lectures. In relation to
these small quizzes, students can have multiple attempts at each one of them. This can help to
transform the quiz taking process into an educational activity instead of a simple assessment. As the
quiz is randomized, the student will get a new version in each attempt, which will be useful for practice
purposes. Feedback is provided for each question, allowing the students to see one (of the possible)
proposed solution, step by step. The Pool of Questions, from which the quizzes are randomised, is
categorized separately by learning items (modules), as well as subdivided in difficulty levels.
3 METHODOLOGY
This study is being carried out, as a different approach to the teaching/learning process in
Mathematics, at a Higher Education Institution. This was implemented in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 in
a Mathematics Zero Course (MZC), at ISCAP, supported by two online Math projects developed at the
Polytechnic of Porto (P. Porto): “Mathematics without STRESS - MOOC” and MatActiva Project. The
sample of our study consisted of a total of 89 students, 15 students enrolled in 2015/2016 and 22
students in 2016/2017, who attended to MZC from Zero Year Course. The participants’ age ranged
between 18 and 23 years old. Three modules/sections of Mathematics: Probability and Combinatorics;
Introduction to Differential Calculus; and Trigonometry and Complex Numbers, were taught during the
academic year. The modules Probability and Combinatorics and Introduction to Differential Calculus,
were taught by using the flipped classroom model, while the topic Trigonometry and Complex
Numbers was taught by traditional teaching methods.
The flipped classroom lesson was scheduled one day per week for 90 minutes per lesson. Students of
the flipped class were required to view one to six short lecture videos, each lasting between five to
eight minutes, prior to the class meeting. The theory and examples found in the video lectures were
similar to those presented in the lecture classes. The video-lectures for M100S course can be found in
[29]. Although these were short (8 minutes maximum), we introduced, in several ones, a small group
of questions and exercises, to be answered by students before continuing the video visualization in
order to create some interaction, promote student engagement and, simultaneously, help them to
overcome the tendency to be overconfident in their learning judgment (see some research results in
[27]). Frequently, at the beginning of the class we straightly answered several questions related to an
item in the video, but a lecture was never taught by the professor in the class. Online quizzes and
activities were combined to “test” what students have learned. Instantaneous quiz feedback and the
ability to repeat lecture segments helped them to clarify some “grey” points in their minds. Inside
classroom, students put into practice what they have learned from the video lectures and many other
resources they previously came across, collaborating and creating meaningful work, developing some
tasks through several discussions with the instructors’ supervision and guidance. During the flipped
classroom meeting, additional problems were worked in small groups, and the professor observed and
supported student participation and progress, corrected students if errors were seen, and answered
questions as they arose. The mentioned quizzes can also enhance learning because if students are
“tested” prior to class, we have the additional opportunity to use feedback from these tests to tailor the
content addressed in class time. Once a module was completed, students had a test with questions
related to theory and examples covered during the lectures.
With this research, we intend to examine whether the introduction of this flipped model improved the
learning experience according to the students’ perception.
4 RESULTS
At the end of each teaching module when graded, an anonymous survey was given to students. Each
survey included three sections: Section1, a numerical rating was used to evaluate the improvement of
students’ mathematical knowledge and skills (a 5 point Likert scale, was used, where “1” represented
Very Unlikely and “5” represented Very Likely); Section 2, a numerical rating was designed to evaluate
the effectiveness of the flipped classroom approach in facilitating students’ learning; and in Section 3,
a written feedback was required, which included two open-ended questions which asked students to
list the aspects they liked about the flipped classroom teaching approach and provide suggestions for
further improvement. The questions in Section 1 (Fig. 4) were designed to evaluate the effectiveness
of these teaching videos and Quizzes practice to enhance students’ knowledge in solving problems
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this method of learning and not putting the time required outside classroom, having some difficulty in
completing the necessary preparation for in-class activities.
However, it is the belief of the authors that the strengths of this model prevail over the concerns and
extra work. Flipped classroom model as a Blended Learning approach allows flexibility in the
proportion and timing of online versus face-to-face interaction which give to the lecturer the flexibility to
meet the needs of the HEI, the course and the students.
We proposed a flipped classroom approach for teaching Probability and Combinatorics and
Differential Calculus to the students of a Mathematics Zero Course. These two modules containing 37
randomized quizzes, with hundreds of questions, were designed and 89 video-lectures, created from
scratch, were employed. Three student surveys were conducted separately for all the teaching
modules, and the results indicated that these flipped classroom teaching modules considerably
enhanced students’ ability of solving mathematical problems related with the teaching modules. In
addition, the flipped classroom model enhanced students’ performance levels and skills in
Mathematics. Surveys also showed that students’ experience became more positive with the flipped
classroom model as they became more familiar with this new teaching approach. Students indicated
that they spent more time in the flipped-class teaching format. The flipped classroom increases
students’ responsibility for their own learning, they have to learn how to manage their time working
with the online course, developing self-study and autonomous learning skills.
Future research needs to be conducted to more effectively compare student outcomes with courses
which use different teaching methods.
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