Flipping the mathematics classroom
The flipped classroom is a teaching technique that has gained worldwide currency during
recent years. In a flipped approach, the information-transmission element of students’
learning is moved out of the classroom; instead, students view recorded lectures in their
own study time ahead of the live session. This frees the class time for activities (such as
discussion and problem-solving) in which students can apply their knowledge and
potentially gives the teacher a better opportunity to detect their misconceptions. In this
case study, Professor Simon Benjamin describes his successful application of the technique
with students in the Department of Materials.
A digital alternative to the traditional lecture model
Having taught the undergraduate course Vectors, Matrices and Determinants for several
years, Simon was looking for a way to free up lecture time for more interactive and
interesting problem-solving discussions. Traditionally, he would explain how to work out a
particular mathematical result and go through several examples on the board, and the
students would copy down notes. However, he decided that this material could be better
presented using short videos to be viewed before the lecture, along with some practice
exercises. This way students could work through the techniques at their own speed. They
would also arrive at lectures equipped with an improved understanding of the topic under
discussion and (hopefully) some probing questions ready to pose to the tutor.
Videos + quizzes = flipped classroom
Simon began by filming 10 short videos and uploading them to YouTube. Each video is 5-
10 minutes long, which he considered the smallest possible size to introduce a particular
technique or idea. In each video Simon draws out a mathematical problem and provides an
audio commentary to explain his thinking.
Figure 1 A screenshot from one of Simon’s videos showing his teaching notes
Once filming was complete, Simon used Final Cut to edit, compose and export the videos.
The next step was select problems from the course’s work sheets. Working with graduate
student Amir Fruchtman, Simon converted the problems into a series of online multiple-
choice quizzes designed for students to test their understanding of the preceding video. If
they make a mistake, they can try again and may receive a hint such as ‘Close – did you
forget the minus sign on the second term?’ Students’ performance is recorded by the quiz
tool and can be reviewed by their tutors.
The materials and quiz questions were uploaded to the Moodle VLE with the help of staff
from the Department for Continuing Education. Before the start of term the students were
informed about the novel structure of the course, and tutors were shown how to access
the system to see how their students were getting on, and to request feedback.
Greater than the sum of the parts…
Simon was pleased to find that, by moving the more rote-learning elements of the course
out of the main lectures, he was indeed able to spend more time simply conversing with the
students about how the techniques could be used to solve problems. Furthermore, he has
found this kind of ‘free-form lecturing’ rewarding, as it allows for more variety: each
lecture takes on a different shape from those in previous years since students’ comments
and questions differ. This presents an exciting new challenge in his teaching. Additionally,
the videos tend to attract more views in the lead-up to exam time, indicating that students
are using them to brush up on their techniques as part of their revision.
Initially, Simon was concerned that the total time students would need to commit to the
course might increase; however, this proved not to be the case. Each video is typically less
than ten minutes long, while the online quiz is the same material that in previous years
would have been part of the problem sheets. Even though the problem sheets are shorter
than before, the quality of the tuition has not been compromised.
Simon has now taught the course in this new format twice and students’ feedback has
been very positive – so much so that the department’s director ofstudies, Dr Adrian Taylor,
has asked him to describe his work to colleagues.
The videos are now hosted on an open Moodle platform under a Creative Commons CC BY
licence available for anyone to use and learn from.
It all adds up: top tips
Simon offers the following advice for other academic staff who are considering flipping
their classrooms:
• If you create and edit the videos yourself, ensure that you realistically account for
editing time in your planning. Although the videos created in this work were only
short, they took at least 10 times as long to edit and that is aside from any training
time to become accustomed with the software.
• Consider recruiting students to help upload the online materials. Simon comments
that ‘Producing an interactive online quiz is time intensive; fortunately for me my
department paid a graduate student to do the conversion process after I identified
the problems that I wanted to be part of the quiz.’
Further information
• You can view the full set of Simon’s mathematics videos in the Vectors, Matrices,
Determinants and Eigenvectors playlist on YouTube, and view the videos together
with their accompanying quizzes in his open Moodle course.
• If you don’t have access to video-recording software, you can use the University’s
Replay lecture capture software for the purpose. See the Replay web pages.
• The IT Learning Centre in IT Services runs courses on planning, producing, filming
and editing short videos.
• The Educational Media Unit in IT Services provides digital video production and
editing services (chargeable).
• For more about the flipped classroom, see these articles:
o Bogost, I. (2013). The Condensed Classroom. The Atlantic.
o O’Flaherty, J. & Philips, C. (2015). The use of flipped classrooms in higher
education: A scoping review. The Internet in Higher Education, 25: 85–95
(available through OxLIP+ e-journals).
Winner, OxTALENT 2016 award for innovative teaching. The text in this
case study has been adapted from Simon Benjamin’s entry for the OxTALENT competition.
