Flipping the Classroom

Ah....... I don't know what it means....I even need to look up the dictionary to understand the word "flip"...

Well, maybe it's about changing the relationship between the students and the lecturer...????

Okay, I got the idea after the Tech Talk, and I think I am an "expert" on flipping the class. I create lots of Group Project Work Days for students to do their group assignments in class. Both students and I like this class management strategy very much. For example, they developed more interest to the research after having hands-on experiences and I have more time to relax. >.<

 But the challenge is that most of the students didn't read the material before coming to the class. Yet that's a possiblity that I have already expected. For example, I wanted my students to know how to conduct a focus group so I gave them three group project work days for doing it. Yet students didn't put enough effort on reading the example of moderator's guide before attending the class to create questions with their group members. I knew that it would adversely affect their conducting the focus group research later but I was not worried about it. Why? because students would take the lesson later after they finished conducting the focus group research. Without a well-prepared moderator's guide, they came up with many unexpected problems: no enough probes; conversation always went off the track... Timing problem.... etc. In such way, students would finally learn the disadvantages of treating the Moderator's guide too casual. Then I achieved my teaching goal at the end.