(429m) Optimizing External Coursework in a Flipped Chemical Reaction Engineering Classroom

Starting in spring 2014, the Chemical Reaction Engineering Class (called Process Kinetics) at the University of Connecticut incorporated a flipped classroom approach. The course includes online daily questions (based on reading assignments), online video lectures, and intentionally short reading assignments combined with only very brief (typically <10 min) of lecturing in class and extensive in-class examples worked by the students. In addition, the class included traditional homework assignments and exams. During the first half of spring 2014, this course was taught as a hybrid lecture/flipped classroom. Based on student midcourse feedback, the course was pushed to a fully flipped classroom and the entirety of the spring 2015 was taught was a flipped classroom.

This presentation will include a description of the course layout, extensive lessons learned from this experience from the perspective on the professor, and an analysis of student feedback from each semester. Overall, the students responded very favorably to the course as a whole. Among the favorite components were the online videos and in-class examples. A large fraction of the class took advantage of the opportunity to rewatch online lectures, review online problems, and revisit the in-class examples in preparation of exams and when completing homework. The flipped classroom set-up also provides an ideal platform for applying just-in-time teaching approaches, particularly if there are specific subtopics with which a large group of students are struggling.

This poster will focus on the relationship between student performance in the course and how well they kept up on the daily course materials and expectations. Specifically, I will compare how far before class meetings assignments and videos are typically completed and compare this to performance in other aspects in the course. I will also discuss future plans to implement gamification to encourage students to complete these assignments in a more timely manner based on preliminary results that demonstrate that students who are successful in the course typically complete assignments further in advance on the class session where the information is covered.