I chose the article, The benefits of Flipping your Classroom because I want to use this concept in my leadership class but it wasn’t working the way I was doing it. I realize now that a part of the issue is that I didn’t take it far enough. I taught the class for the first time last year and I kept it in the former instructors format because I was new to the college and I wanted to make sure I covered everything required the first go around. In the end I realized that the last instructor didn’t cover leadership but basic supervision and there were gaps in the learning. So I am now in a refresh process.
Between the article and Salman Khan’s, Let’s Use Video to Reinvent Education, I really like the ideas presented and the concepts. I’m not sure that I will have time to record all of the lectures this year but that may work in the future, I’m more considering shorter lectures (30 to 45 minutes) and then the remaining hour work with the students to understand the concepts, have guest speakers and more real life examples. Last year many students asked me if the concepts I was explaining really worked in the real world. I said that they did because I had used them. I have since met others who have as well so bringing them in to the classroom would assist in driving the point home.
I also like the idea of changing how I grade the course. Up until now it has been done as a multiple choice exam. But I always wondered, how do leadership skills come out in multiple choice exams? Well they don’t. It just gives a grade. Instead I think I will look for something more leadership related… possibly formal presentations or a strategic plan.
Does anyone have any other ideas of what I could use for assessments in this area?
tammyleadership 
Hi Tammy!
I agree with you that the task of recording your lectures might not really fit the mold for all teachers, or even seem a bit daunting. Its a great idea but you may have to take the concept of changing up your lectures and tweak it to fit how you do things. Already you are changing it up by starting to cut down the time of your lectures. We tend to go on forever about a ton of information but in most cases the 1 hour lecture can be cut down a lot. Condensing your information and only focusing on the most important parts helps students know what to focus on. Or even breaking the lecture into parts. Teach one part, then find a way to interact with each other and explore that piece of information. Then when it seems like people have a good grasp, move on to the next part of the lecture.
i love that you are thinking of changing up your grading process. I know for my line of work and for most Red Seal exams results are based on a multiple choice test. How can you fully assess someone in a hands on trade if you are not testing them on what they are doing with their hands. I think this is something most trade teachers should think about changing up. In my class I do both a written test as well as a hands on practical relating to what unit we are learning about.
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Multiple guess exams are the single worst way of evaluating. My advise is to use a mix of questions and the exam: MC, short answer, long answer, possibly even a practical component. I’ve also been in the situation of inheriting a course that did not really meet the outcomes. My approach was to set up my presentations so that I’d talk for a few minutes, they’d work for a few minutes, and I’d continue to flip-flop for every class in the course. Students liked it because they got the information in a familiar format and also had the opportunity in class to convert that information into knowledge.
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Hi Tammy,
The article you chose was very informative. I too took over someones course and found some of the content missing. I have since revised the course to try and reduce the multiple choice quizzes, I started with; having the students give presentations on certain topics and marking them on content, and participation. I then started a discussion board and gave the students scenarios they may see in the field and again have them comment on the post.
Each one would be weighted either five or ten percent of the marks.
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