Tag: Harvey Mudd

Update 10/26: We now have Rachel Levy and Nancy Lape (who was the researcher interviewed by USA Today) both agreeing with Darryl’s comments. That’s three of the four members of the research team. While I do not claim to understand how the reporter developed her story line (I have asked for comment), it is quite clear that the article does not represent the work of the Harvey Mudd research team and has a misleading headline and lede.

As a follow up to my response to the USA Today article on flipped classroom research, there was a very informative comment one Google+ from Darryl Yong (one of the members of the Harvey Mudd research team). I thought this comment deserved to be seen by a wider audience, so I’m reproducing in full.

Thanks, Phil, for this post. The USA Today article paints an inaccurate picture of our work and I wanted to try to clarify some things and continue this conversation with you and your readers. (I am only writing on my own behalf and not for my collaborators on this study.)

My biggest regret is that the article greatly oversimplifies things by portraying our study as an attempt to answer whether flipped classrooms work or not. That kind of research question is too blunt to be useful. Our goal is to better understand the conditions under which flipped classrooms lead to better student outcomes. As Phil and others here point out, there are many different manifestations of what we mean by the term “flipped classroom” and that we should be wary about talking about it as if there is one canonical implementation. How are the benefits of flipped classrooms affected by school and student contexts, and are there other benefits that we haven’t yet characterized? We don’t have any preconceived answers to these research questions. While folks might disagree with us whether these research questions are interesting or not, they should at least know that we’re aware of the good work that others have already done and we’re trying to build on it rather than debunk it.

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Update 10/25: Bumped comment from Darryl Yong, a member of the research team, into its own post here.

Update 10/26: We now have Rachel Levy and Nancy Lape (who was the researcher interviewed by USA Today) both agreeing with Darryl’s comments. That’s three of the four members of the research team. While I do not claim to understand how the reporter developed her story line (I have asked for comment), it is quite clear that the article does not represent the work of the Harvey Mudd research team and has a misleading headline and lede.

USA Today published an article today titled “‘Flipped classrooms’ may not have any impact on learning“, based on research from four Harvey Mudd professors. This research is backed by a “$199,544 grant from the National Science Foundation to study the effects of the flipped classroom on students’ learning”. This is newsworthy, right? A real research report with NSF funding finding no statistical difference in learning outcomes from flipped classroom seems to contradict much of the recent promise of ed tech.

Upon closer reading, however, there are some major problems with the story. Exaggerated claims by ed tech enthusiasts are not helpful, but neither are exaggerated claims by ed tech skeptics. We at e-Literate have been critical of both flavors (witness our analysis of San Jose State claims, Desire2Learn claims, and edX claims for examples of the former).

Let’s review today’s story as an example of the latter.

In a flipped classroom, students watch their professors’ lectures online before class, while spending class time working on hands-on, “real world” problems.

The potential of the model has many educators thrilled — it could be the end of vast lecture halls, students falling asleep and boring, monotone professors.

This is a decent summary, although I would argue there should not be a one-size-fits-all mentality. Flipped classrooms, even where successful, should not replace all lecture-based classes. But for national media, this is not a bad description.

But four professors at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif. who are studying the effectiveness of a flipped classroom have bad news for advocates of the trend: it might not make any difference.

This is the lede, and the claim that we should examine. What is the basis of their study?

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