Reflections and Testimonials

I. Testimonials

Sample email from students

Thu 8/28/2014 9:29 PM

Dear Dr. Dereje,

I would like to express my immense gratitude due to the fact that you made us very interested in the vibrations course. My course colleagues can also certify to that.I am typically sort of lazy student but this time it changed when you started giving the course and I was keen on attending because it was interesting. I promise I will work on my attitude towards discipline also. Thanks also for letting me replace the labs and I hope I see you on one of the courses later in final year.

Best regards,

Mohamed Fekry

Sample Student Feedback (excerpts from student evaluation reports)

• He is passionate about his teachings. The way he communicates, explains, and all are beyond satisfaction.(TER_Report DM431 Sem1, 2012)

• ... keeping the study environment interesting, approachable when have any question but need to prepare for counter question answer and really help to motivate student in this unit. (TER_Report MED337 Sem2, 2011)

• Dr. Dereje is a good lecturer. He is very enthusiastic and patient in teaching. (TER_Report MED337 Sem2, 2011)

• I like Dr. Dereje! He's straight to the point and knowledgeable. Passionate in his work and patience in handling problems. (TER_Report EG232 Sem1, 2011)

• Enthusiasm in teaching, always strive to provide better understanding on the topic being taught. Keep it up (TER_Report IT342 Sem1, 2011)

• very good....he take concern of every student(TER_Report EM100 Sem 2, 2010)

• Dr Dereje is a warm, friendly and approachable teacher I feel most comfortable with. He is humble and would help anyone. I believe it's his genuine kindness that made me so interested in this unit.(TER_Report EG232 Sem1, 2010)

• His teaching was very good and not only based on the lecture materials provided but also did some research on the topic covered. Thus, he is a hardworking lecturer.(TER_Report IT342 Sem1, 2010)

II. Reflections

My Reflection on Flipped Classroom (2018)

At the beginning of the semester, we set the following ground rules with respect to flipped classroom:

1. All reading materials (lecture materials) will be posted on e-learning every Friday for the following week classes.

2. They have to read the material/watch video/conduct simulation and answer concept questions using webclicker.

3. The concept questions will be posted at least one day before the lecture and closed one hour before the class starts.

4. The concept questions are as form of formative assessment and there will be coursework mark for participation (5 marks for participation in all pre/during/post lecture for the whole semester ).

For the first three weeks, I reminded them on the importance of preparing for class and answering the concept questions before they come to class. Starting from my first lecture, I revise the whole lecture within the first 10 minutes and we started working on problems and hands on activities. I would say 90% of the students were not ready and did not read the material. This number decrease with time and after two weeks, almost 90% of the students read the material before class. I used their response from webclicker to prepare for class specially to identify misconception and give emphasis during the class. I will display webclicker result at the end of the class to give them feedback (formative assessment). Sometime, when I notice there are discrepancies in their response, I ask the same question to gauge their understanding after my intervention during the summary session.

When I tracked their response on webclicker, I noticed that those who respond on the last minute guessed the answer without reading the material. For instance, one day 85% of the students answered a particular question correctly when I checked 3 hours before my class start. When I check 1 hour before my class, the percentage dropped to 80 %. This shows that, those who answered within the last two hours were guessing the answer and getting it wrong which resulted in drop in percentage of correct response. I shared this finding in my next class and impose additional criteria to get full mark for participation. The 5 mark participation may also consider the correctness of

At the end of week 4, I send an open ended survey with three simple questions:

1. What do you want me to continue?

2. What do you want me to stop?

3. Any other comment to improve the teaching and learning process

I got mixed response for those questions.

Here are some of the responses:

What do you want me to continue?

• The usage of web clicker is good to learn the fundamental concepts of the subject…

• webclicker.. tutorial and all of them..

• Pre.&Post-Class quizzes; they really get the students to engage with the subject.

• continue webclicker because it helps me a lot to get the point of lecture before going to the class.

• The webclicker questions. It give me the initiative to read the slides and try to understand them before class.

• Pre.&Post-Class quizzes; they really get the students to engage with the subject.

• The Webclicker is a very good idea as it motivate me to study before and after the class

What do you want me to stop?

• “Stop the webclicker. (Please,TQ)”

• “stop depend on us to learn by ourselves in room before come to class. im sorry, but you have to set in your mind that most of the student dont really care about lesson before class. we come to class to learn something new. i know that your technique is very useful if and if it was implemented in our style of learning before enter the university. in about 3 month of lecture class, i cannot really follow the pace of your teaching style but dont misunderstood, it is not because your style is bad , it is effective if its given longer time to adapt to the system."

The last comment looks to be the most critical to me. The student acknowledged the importance of the approach, at the same time telling me what I am supposed to do ("to teach") rather than letting the student learn. In addition, lack of previous experience in this approach has been highlighted.

Any other comment:

• Too many webclicker. can we do it only once a week?

• Can you send us reminder to answer the webclicker questions?

After the survey, I shared the finding with my students and tried to encourage them.

After week 6, when they are having tests for other subjects, I noticed the number student who read and answer the pre-lecture concept question decrease.

Challenges:

1. Time constraint and workload

I understand the problem the students are facing with regards to time to prepare for class considering the workload they have and other social and extracurricular activities. They are overloaded with so many activities.

1. Attitude toward learning

The main problem is how to bring attitude change in the learning approach. They use to study after class. In flipped classroom, we want them to study before they come to class and we use the class time to do hands on exercise. This may take time to adapt.

1. How to make sure they read before they come to flipped classroom? I tried using webclicker. After going through the study material, they have to answer the concept questions using webclicker. Is it effective? I think I have to study further.

1. Are there other possible ways to encourage them to study before they come to flipped classroom? Ideally, we need some kind of interactive lecture where they read/watch video and then answer the concept questions before reading the next part similar to MOOCS. How to develop such material? Will it be effective? Can the student find a way to bypass this?

From the feedback I got, a number of students appreciated my effort. "Thank you so much , You are such a good teacher ". At the same time, there was one student who was not happy about the new approach I adopted. "The way you conduct the tutorial is very very bad (very bad) I hate to attend "

I need to study how to make these kinds of students feel comfortable. The tutorial class is hands on and part of the flipped classroom.

Overall, I am happy with the outcome of my intervention. I hope to improve on my shortcomings. I am learning every day. It is work in progress.

"There is always room for improvement, no matter how long you have been in business" Oscar De La Hoya