Flipping the Classroom: An Investigation of Student and Instructor Experience in Two First-Year Calculus Courses and Its Impact on Learning

Grant program: Teaching and Learning Development Grant (TLDG)

Grant recipient: Veselin Jungic, Department of Mathematics

Project team: Jamie Mulholland, Department of Mathematics, Cindy Xin, Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC), Harpreet Kaur, Greg Hum, and Sonja Surjanovic, research assistant

Funding: $5,000

Courses addressed:

• MATH 150 – Calculus I with Review
• MATH 152 – Calculus II

Papers: A paper (PDF1, PDF2) was accepted for a paper presentation at the 2014 International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in Education, Vancouver BC. A version of a paper (PDF) accepted as a Short Oral Communication at the Psychology of Mathematics Education 2014 Conference, Vancouver BC. A preprint of "On Flipping the Classroom in Large First Year Calculus Courses" (PDF).

Description: In a previous project, “Flipping the Classroom: An Investigation of the Use of Pre-Recorded Video Lectures and Its Impact on Student and Instructor Experience in Two First-Year Calculus Courses” we focused on studying the use of video lectures in Math 150 and found that it afforded a new set of learning and teaching experiences. In the flipped classroom, class activities are based on problem-solving exercises and students are given the opportunities and the responsibility to teach each other. There are of course, times when students have trouble teaching one another successfully or satisfactorily. This is when instruction and feedback, supported with a classroom response system such as clickers, from a teacher become critical.

In the current proposal we wish to focus on studying the interactive aspects of the flipped classroom experience for both students and the instructors by further analysing the data we collected in our previous grant. This data consists of student surveys, student interviews, instructor interviews, classroom observations, and notes from the instructional and research team debriefs during the term which we will analyse qualitatively.

Questions addressed:

• What are the perspectives of the students and instructors on their flipped classroom experiences in terms of teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction, impact on learning inside and outside the classroom, and impacts on teaching inside and outside the classroom?
• How do students at different levels of performance (high, medium and low) perceive their flipped classroom experience in terms of teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction, impact on learning inside and outside the classroom, and impacts on teaching inside and outside the classroom?
• How do students’ experiences of the two calculus courses compare in terms of teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction, impact on learning inside and outside the classroom, and impacts on teaching inside and outside the classroom?
• How do the two instructors’ experiences of teaching the two calculus courses compare in terms of instructional preparation, in-class teaching, and interaction with the students?

Knowledge sharing: We have already previously had many informal discussions with colleagues in the Mathematics department and in the Faculty of Science.  We also hosted a Teaching Circle event in November 2012 for the Faculty of Science where participants observed one of our classes and we discussed our experiences with them.  Word of our project has spread throughout the Faculty of Sciences.  Instructors in a number of departments are proposing to use flipped classroom methods to transform their courses and we are currently in contact with these instructors.  As part of the project, between January-April 2014 we organized a weekly seminar titled "The Flipped Classroom Seminar: What is out there and why?"  The seminar was accompanied by a CANVAS course that contained a selection of related readings.  Twenty-five SFU instructors joined the CANVAS course.

See the "Papers" section for paper PDFs.

Hum, G., Jungic, V., Kaur, H., Mulholland, J., Surjanovic, S., & Xin, C. (2015, June). Flipped classroom: Results from a two-year implementation of four large undergraduate calculus courses. Presentation at the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) Conference, Vancouver, BC.

Jungić, V., Kaur, H., Mulholland, J. & Xin, C. (2015). On flipping the classroom in large first year calculus courses. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 46(4), 508-520. doi: 10.1080/0020739X.2014.990529

Jungic, V., Kaur, H., Mulholland, J., & Xin, C. (2014, May). On flipping the classroom in large first year calculus courses. Paper presented at the Canadian Mathematics Education Forum, Ottawa, ON.

Jungic, V., Kaur, H., Mulholland, J., & Xin, C. (2013, June). Flip the classroom: An investigation of the experiences of instructors, students and an educational developer in two first-year undergraduate calculus courses. Presentation at the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) Conference, Sydney, NS. 

Jungic, V., Xin, C., Mulholland, J., Kaur, H., & Surjanovic, S. (2014, August). Flip the calculus classroom: What works, for whom and in what context? Presentation at the Mathematical Association of America MathFest (MAA), Portland, OR.  

Kaur, H., Xin, C., Jungić, V., & Mulholland, J. (2014, July). Students' experiences and achievement in three flipped large undergraduate calculus courses. Presentation at the Joint Meeting of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME 38) and the North American Chapter of the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME-NA 36), University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.

Kaur, H., Xin, C., Mulholland, J., & Jungic, V. (2014, July). On the use of instructor made calculus video lectures in context of flipped classroom. Presentation at the International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in Education, Vancouver, BC.   

Mulholland, J. (2014, January). Flipping the classroom. Presentation at the Teaching and Learning Social, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC.

Mulholland, J., Jungić, V., Xin, C., & Kaur, H. (2014, May). Our experience in flipping the classroom in three large first year university calculus classes. Presentation at the Canadian Mathematics Education Forum (CMEF), University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON.

Xin, C., Jungic, V., Mulholland, J., & Kaur, H. (2013, November). Flip the classroom: Comparing the experiences of instructors and students in two first-year large undergraduate calculus courses. Paper presented at the 2013 Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Banff, AB.  

Xin, C., Mulholland, J., Jungic, V., & Kaur, H. (2014, July). On Instructor experiences in three flipped large undergraduate calculus courses. Presentation at the International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in Education, Vancouver, BC. 

Xin, C., Jungic, V., Mulholland, J., & Kaur, H. (2014, July). Students’ experiences and achievement in three flipped large undergraduate calculus courses. Presentation at the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME 38) Annual Conference, Vancouver, BC. 

Xin, C., Jungic, V., Mulholland, J., & Kaur, H. (2014, July). What works, for whom and in what context? Students’ experiences and achievement in three flipped large undergraduate calculus courses. Paper presented at the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (PME 38) Annual Conference, Vancouver, BC.