Could the Flipped Classroom Work for Developmental Education?

Many people would be quick to answer "yes" to this question. The concept of a flipped classroom is where class lectures are recorded and watched as homework and then the hands-on activities that used to be homework are done in class.

One of the benefits of a flipped classroom is that it can make better use of classroom time. Instead of the professor standing in front of the room lecturing, time is spent on hands-on and small-group learning, and the professor can spend more time working with individual students. The lecturer becomes facilitator. This, in turn, can create stronger relationships between students and teachers, and students and students.

It also "meets the students where they are," a buzz phrase that's going around. The idea is that our students are tech savvy and tech focused, so we can get their attention by using technology to teach. This isn't new--education technology has been employed for decades, although the technology itself is always changing.

It can also greatly help struggling students, something that will make developmental educators sit up and take notice. Almost all of our students are struggling in one way or another, and we don't always have the ability or resources to help them effectively. The flipped classroom helps with many of those problems. Students can listen to and review lectures as many times as they need. They (or better yet, the professors) can break lectures up into shorter segments that can be digested one at a time. Many recording systems also offer closed captioning of the videos, sometimes even in multiple languages. And studying has never been easier--students no longer have to take notes on the lectures (although it's still a good idea); they can watch them over and over.

That last point, however, leads to a couple of the possible drawbacks of a flipped classroom. It can reinforce the idea of memorization and regurgitation, which most would agree is not really learning. This issue can be combated by what goes on in the classroom, but it will take awareness and careful attention by the professor.

Flipped classrooms also reinforce the old "sage on the stage" model--except now the sage is on TV. This method of teaching tells students that the professor has all of the knowledge, which s/he will impart to them. Not only does it devalue the experiences and curiosity of the students, but it also reinforces the idea that there is always a right answer, and that the professor knows what it is. This is something that many are trying to get away from, especially in higher education.

This doesn't mean that there's no place for lecture in education. It will always be necessary to impart new information to students, and sometimes there is a right answer. Again, the professor has to be careful to follow up on the lectures in class and make sure the students are learning what they're supposed to, and as deeply.

When we come to the concept of meeting students where they are, we have to stop and ask, "Are they really there?" In community colleges, the answer is often "no." Students don't necessarily have access to computers and/or the Internet when not on campus. Further, many of our students are not as tech savvy as we think, or not in the way we think. Even the youngest, most plugged in students have serious limitations in what tools they know how to use. And if we are overestimating some students, how many professors will be able or even want to use technology in this way?

Finally, there is the problem of money. Lecture capture systems are not cheap, and they have to be managed (to varying degrees) by a college's IT department. There are certainly ways of getting funding to get started with lecture capture, but colleges do have to make plans to maintain the system in the future, and they have to be willing to dedicate money that may have gone elsewhere.

So the long and short of it is, a flipped classroom can be a great idea for developmental (or any) education, but it needs planning and the right people to make it successful.

Academic Coaching

It's common for courses taught at the developmental level to be accompanied by some sort of lab time that allows students to practice skills and get extra help in areas where they struggle. Labs are staffed with tutors who are experts in the fields of reading, writing, grammar and math.

However, anyone who teaches developmental education has probably heard that developmental students need more than just content teaching. They need to be taught "how to be students." Many students who test into developmental courses do so because they never developed the discipline, study habits, and motivation that the most successful students do.

Academic coaching is designed to teach students these "non-academic" skills. The need for these skills is not limited to developmental students alone. Many of these skills are addressed in a first-year seminar-style course designed to help students transition to college. However, one might argue that this method of delivery is at best not enough and at worst ineffective if taught in isolation from the rest of a student's courses.

Academic coaching is presents more of an "alongside" approach. Carol Carter, when interviewed for the Winter 2011 issue of the Journal of Developmental Education by Amy. L. Webberman, says, "Coaches, whose role it is to guide students academically, emotionally, and socially, can be a counselor or an advisor, but they can also be a math, English, or biology professor" (20). Carter advocates this approach for all teachers of developmental education. These students in particular need extra guidance and support, and they are the least likely to persevere."Academic coaching is an ongoing partnership to help student produce fulfilling results in their lives. Through the process of coaching, students deepen their learning, take responsibility for their actions, improve their effectiveness, and consciously create their outcomes in life" (Webberman 19).

Academic coaching programs have been linked to improved student retention and graduation rates, too. With funding for public colleges rapidly shrinking and depending more and more on graduation rates, it's likely that more developmental ed programs will start looking into coaching programs and training for their professors.


References
Webberman, Amy L. "Academic Coaching to Promote Student Success: An Interview with Carol Carter." Journal of Developmental Education. 13.2 (Winter 2011): 18-20. Print.

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Learning Communities

Learning communities have become popular at many community colleges, especially in the below-college levels--both developmental ed and ESL. They involve grouping 2 or more courses together, so that the same group of students takes all of the linked courses together.

However, learning communities offer more than simply paired courses (another common strategy employed in developmental education). The courses that are grouped combine college-level courses with developmental courses. The faculty teaching the courses work together, sharing materials and lessons, and sometimes even syllabi and assignments. Thus, the developmental course(s) teach with a focus on the college-level course grouped with it.

For example, a school might group a Psychology 101 course with a developmental reading and writing course. The reading and writing assignments would have a psychology focus, which gives the students a sense of purpose in their developmental courses and extra help mastering the new lexicon involved in the field of psychology. In addition, because the same group of students meet for more than one class together, they are more likely to turn to each other as a support system for the classes. They contact each other for missed classes and may even form study groups.

They also allow students in developmental classes to start taking college-level courses earlier and have been shown to increase retention of below-college-level students. As more and more colleges' government funding becomes tied to retention and completion, learning communities may be turned to more as avenues to improving student success rates.

Image source: http://www.defl.ca/en/ecole.html.