Combining flipped class sessions with traditional lectures in a non-computational upper level economic geology class

Abstract

Flipped classrooms have been shown to be useful in both introductory and advanced computational Earth Science courses. However, to date they have not been implemented in advanced level non-computational courses. Here we assess a three-year study into the use of flipped classroom techniques in a fourth year undergraduate Mineral Deposits class. One to two flipped classrooms were used to teach porphyry deposits, iron oxide copper gold and/or volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits. The effectiveness of the technique was assessed using a combination of student feedback forms, comparison of students’ ability to answer exam questions from topics taught by flipped classroom versus other topics taught by traditional methods, and interviews with students 6 to 36 months after completion of the course. The students’ ability to answer lecture exam questions was slightly higher in topics taught as flipped classrooms compared to traditional techniques. Whereas the students’ ability to answer laboratory exam questions was slightly lower between topics taught as flipped classrooms. However, most students did think that the flipped classrooms were useful and aided in their learning of the material. The use of video lectures was particularly appreciated by some who found that it increased their flexibility and ability to absorb the material at their own pace. As such we determined that flipped classrooms are an effective technique for teaching upper-level non-computational Earth Science courses and they increased behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement.

Keywords:

• Flipped classroom
• active learning
• Economic Geology
• video lectures

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the students who generously gave their feedback on the course. We would also like to thank Heidi Tomes and Nelson Roman for their time as teaching assistants in the course and Charly Bank for curating student responses during the project. We would also like to thank Laurence Curtis, Martin Reich, and Agnico Eagle Mines Limited for their donations of materials used in the flipped classroom exercises. We would further like to thank three anonymous reviewers, the associate editor and C&I editor for detailed comments that greatly improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.