Example Flipped Lesson: Introduction to IE

📌The "Weekly Guide" is this course's Lesson Overview. It reaches students a week before class, at the same time as the pre-class videos, so they meet the outcomes before the content and watch with a target in mind. Each outcome opens with a verb naming an observable behavior so both the student and the instructor can tell whether it has been reached.

📌 The "Lecture Video" is where students first meet the material: the foundational, lower-order layer, Remembering and Understanding, that class time then builds on. It does not have to be a video. What matters is that students arrive already familiar with the basics, and that the load stays small enough that they actually complete it. In this example, one or two short videos go up a week before class. The same concepts, terminology and notation reappear in class during exercises, so the video starts the learning rather than finishing it.

Students who come to class without having watched the video naturally group up with classmates who did watch, and those peers walk them through the material. They also approach the teaching assistants more freely since the dynamic feels less formal. On top of that, the example problems we solve together at the start of class revisit many of the key ideas from the video, so even unprepared students pick up a good deal during that bridging stage.

📌 The Bridging Activity: We begin by solving the example problems together. During this stage, I revisit the key concepts, terminology, and mathematical ideas introduced in the pre-class videos. Rather than simply presenting the solution, I actively engage students by asking questions throughout the process to encourage them to participate in the discussion and to explain their reasoning. I also emphasize proper mathematical writing to show how solutions should be organized, how mathematical arguments should be presented, and how students are expected to communicate their work clearly and professionally.

📌 Active Learning Tasks: After completing the examples, students form small collaborative groups to solve the remaining exercises. Groups typically consist of two to five students, and I ask that no group exceed five members. Working collaboratively allows students to discuss different solution strategies, explain concepts to one another, and strengthen their understanding through peer learning.

📌 Active Learning Support: To support students during these problem-solving sessions, I am assisted by two or three undergraduate teaching assistants depending on the class size. These assistants are students who have previously completed the course with high academic performance. While students work on the exercises, both the teaching assistants and I circulate throughout the classroom by visiting every group to answer their questions, identify misconceptions, provide guidance, and help students improve both their problem-solving strategies and their mathematical writing. We intentionally divide the classroom among the teaching assistants so that every group receives regular feedback and support throughout the session.

📌This continuous interaction also enables us to evaluate each student’s level of participation. Rather than grading students based on whether they obtain the correct answers, we assess their participation according to the effort and engagement they demonstrate during class. At the end of each session, every student receives a participation score of 0, 1, or 2.

Click 0, 1 or 2 to see the criteria the instructor and teaching assistants apply.

In addition, students who arrive more than 20 minutes late can receive at most 1 participation point regardless of their subsequent effort. Students are also expected to remain in class until they have completed their work, and their participation has been evaluated. They are not permitted to leave the classroom before this process is completed.

📌 Lecture Slides are not a before-class activity. When I give the slides together with the video, students are less likely to watch the video. That is why I upload the slides to Blackboard only after the lesson is finished; they become available as soon as I walk out of class. Because the slides are not available beforehand, I see many students arriving with notes they have taken from the video at home, in notebooks or on tablets, which they then bring out during the in-class active learning exercises.