Implementing a flipped classroom approach in a university numerical methods mathematics course

ABSTRACT

This paper describes and analyses the implementation of a ‘flipped classroom’ approach, in an undergraduate mathematics course on numerical methods. The approach replaced all the lecture contents by instructor-made videos and was implemented in the consecutive years 2014 and 2015. The sequential case study presented here begins with an examination of the attitudes of the 2014 cohort to the approach in general as well as analysing their use of the videos. Based on these responses, the instructor makes a number of changes (for example, the use of ‘cloze’ summary notes and the introduction of an extra, optional tutorial class) before repeating the ‘flipped classroom’ approach the following year. The attitudes to the approach and the video usage of the 2015 cohort are then compared with the 2014 cohort and further changes that could be implemented for the next cohort are suggested.

KEYWORDS:

• Flipped classroom
• blended learning
• instructional videos
• university mathematics course
• educational technology
• mathematics education

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Wendy Loughlin for helpful discussions about this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.