We’ve written about flipped classrooms on the blog before: In a traditional classroom, the instructor lectures, presents information to the students, and then the students work through problems on their own as homework. In a flipped classroom, students watch video lessons at home, and then work through problems in class, with the help of the instructor. The idea is the “flipped” method might be a better use of class time, and allow for more valuable student-instructor interaction.
Instructors and researched in North Dakota studied an AP Chemistry class to try and answer these questions:
- Do students in the flipped classroom perform differently than students in the traditional classroom?
- What perceptions do students have about the flipped classroom?
The results of their findings are published in the Journal of Chemical Education as “part of a special issue on teaching introductory chemistry in the context of the advanced placement (AP) chemistry course redesign”. They found that indeed, the students in the flipped classroom performed higher, on average, than the control group in a traditional classroom. They also found that students preferred the flipped teaching method because it gave them the freedom to pause, rewind, and review the lectures, as well as interact more with the instructor. If you’d like to learn more, you can read their article on The American Chemical Society’s website.
And remember, OCW has chemistry exam prep materials on our sister site, Highlights for High School.
