When learning happens before class. Class time can then be used to solve related problems.

Why?

Because, a) learning is not complete unless the learnt material is applied or used in an exercise; b) Class time is a limited resource, and having students learn basic concepts before class allows me to engage students in problem-solving; c) I believe guiding my students in solving a problem is more conducive to learning than a lecture that gives the answer.

Some issues that have been raised in earlier meetings (flipped classroom)

–  We have tutorials/Labs for problem-solving – that’s what TAs do in a tutorial. So, are the instructors taking up TA’s task?

• Not all courses have tutorial sessions.
• Why should the instructor be deprived of witnessing her student’s ‘Aha moments’ that, in general, are more frequent during problem-solving?
• The instructor would lead the class in problem-solving, discussing the nuances and the concepts that need to be applied – while the TAs assist.

–  Would there be a need for professors- if the lecture can be replaced by a video and TAs can hold tutorials?

• I would be surprised if a whole course can be flipped. I think there would always be material that can be better explained in a classroom.
• One benefit of videos that I have not heard at these meetings is the ability to watch and replay and then to replay some more till the student gets the concept (see evidence of student engagement below).

Evidence of student engagement

Teaching statistical software—STATA—in my course Econ 490 (2009)

I started using video tutorials in my courses in 2009. I created videos (screen-capture)  tutorials for the seminar Econ 490 course (Gender, Population and Health) and posted them on YouTube.

These video tutorials were created to help students with their research. They review lectures on statistical software and discuss other research tools, like accessing data sources from the UBC library.

Introduction to Stata

Video tutorials are especially useful for courses where students need to practice and review software commands provided in a class, closer to the time when the data is accessed, or the software is used.

The following user statistics are for the video “Stata for Assignment 2 part 1” – it reviews the STATA commands discussed in class, and that is needed to complete Assignment 2 for this course. From the user statistics for these video tutorials, note that:

1.  Students viewed this video multiple times; a class of only 44 students viewed this video more than 100 times. (Imagine doing this in-class time)

2. Students viewed this video just before the final paper due date.