Flipping the classroom
Students’ perceptions from an introductory
sociology course
Ann Ward, Aja Antoine and Wendy Cadge
t
ABSTRACT
This article describes one approach to flipping an introductory sociology course. To encourage students to practice ‘doing’ sociology, we
designed a flipped classroom that included a ‘pay to play’ model,
small group work and an emphasis on active learning during class
time. With this course design, we linked in-class active learning with
outside prework so that students could engage with critical sociological concepts and apply those concepts in practice. With this flipped
design, the instructors observed that students were deeply engaged
with the course topics and expressed positive perceptions of their
learning and growth over the semester. As the landscape of university instruction shifts, this course design model may assist instructors
looking to foster active and engaged learning remotely.
KEYWORDS
active learning, flipped classrooms, introductory sociology, remote
learning
t
Instructors teach some form of introductory sociology course at a wide range
of colleges and universities. Multiple textbooks map the content of introductory sociology classes, and instructors prepare courses in introductory
sociology every semester. Scholars have explored pedagogical approaches
to introductory courses in sociology in online, in-person, and hybrid models
(Auster 2016; Belet 2018; Luna and Winters 2017). A robust body of literature
considers innovative teaching strategies for introductory sociology classes,
including thematically focused course design (Howard et al. 2014), recursive exercises that encourage students to develop sociological imaginations
(Whitaker 2017), and photo-elicitation projects that simultaneously develop
Learning and Teaching
doi: 10.3167/latiss.2021.140305
Volume 14, Issue 3, Winter 2021: 70–90 © The Author(s)
ISSN 1755-2273 (Print), ISSN 1755-2281 (Online)
Flipping the classroom
t
students’ sociological imaginations while also informing instructors about
unfamiliar social contexts (Mount 2018).
This article explores the opportunities and limitations of teaching introductory sociology using flipped pedagogy – an approach in which content
is primarily delivered outside of the classroom and students spend in-class
time on problem sets and interactive learning (Naccarato and Karakok 2015;
Schwartz 2014; Tomory and Watson 2015). In this article, we share lessons
learned from designing a flipped classroom, focusing primarily on the structures we implemented to facilitate active learning. Using a combination of
small group work and outside work that relied on a ‘pay to play’ model,
we encouraged students to move beyond information retention and towards
‘doing’ sociology. These active learning exercises that we executed during
class time provided a significant opportunity for this kind of learning. One
primary space where active learning activities took place was in small assigned groups. These groups allowed us to break up an otherwise large lecture-sized class and create space for smaller, more intimate learning teams.
Additionally, to ensure that students could participate in the active learning activities designed for the small groups, we had to be sure they understood the key course concepts. Because the flipped classroom delivers most
of the course content outside of class time, we also created a ‘pay to play’
model to ensure students were coming to class prepared and with a general
understanding of the materials. Together, the active learning activities, small
groups, and the ‘pay to play’ model allowed us to design a course where
students were encouraged to both learn about and do Sociology.
The decision to ‘flip’ our introductory sociology course was rooted in the
desire to encourage student participation in the course and make it difficult
for students to passively sit in class without engaging with one another or the
material. With this goal in mind, a flipped course design was uniquely situated to facilitate active learning in class. Because we delivered the majority of
the content outside of class, students used the content that they had learned
the night before during class time. In past experiences teaching introductory
courses, Author 2 found that the parts of the semester that students enjoyed
most were hands-on, active learning exercises. She also found that during
these activities, students showed significant engagement with the course
learning goals. A flipped structure provided an innovative format to build
these active learning activities into the class.
In this article, we describe how we flipped the course, evaluate assessment data based on student perception, and explore the opportunities and
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limitations of this approach. We describe the principles we utilised to design
this class and share the feedback we gathered from students. Flipped classrooms facilitate collaborative, dynamic, active learning activities that allow
students to try out ‘doing sociology’, which is especially important in an
era of collective reassessment of how universities prepare students for their
professional goals.
Literature review
While there is some debate over terminology (Fuster 2016), most scholars
agree that the flipped classroom is a form of blended learning in which students do most of the ‘traditional learning’ online or outside of the classroom
and spend in-class time participating in various types of active learning activities (Horn 2013; McNally et al. 2017). The Flipped Learning Network has
distinguished between a flipped classroom and flipped learning (FLN 2014),
claiming that while many teachers flip the classroom by requiring students
to do work outside of class, to engage in flipped learning, the instructor must
implement a flexible environment, a learner-centred culture, and intentional
content that makes sense in the context of the course. While we understand
the need to distinguish between simply assigning materials outside of class
and engaging in rigorous course design and implementation, we use both
terms here for audiences less familiar with definitional nuances.
Debates around defining terms are not the only thing instructors have
yet to agree on regarding the flipped classroom. Marilla Svinicki (2013) asks
the question, ‘Are flipped classrooms really something new?’ She claims
that while flipped classrooms capitalise on active learning opportunities,
allow instructors to use their expertise in valuable ways, and set important
expectations around coming to class prepared, there is actually nothing new
about this kind of course design. She argues that what would make a flipped
classroom new is if students could use information in a face-to-face class. To
promote doing sociology, we attempted to use active learning activities to
empower students to use the information from the course, not just receive it.
As faculty continue to explore the most effective approaches to teaching
and learning in higher education, flipping the classroom is an increasingly
popular approach to course design, particularly in the Science, Technology,
Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Scholars in STEM fields have
been considering the opportunities and limitations of flipped classrooms for
years. Recent publications examine the practical challenges of locating ap/ 72
Flipping the classroom
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propriate on-campus space for these types of courses (Baepler et al. 2014)
and discuss navigating faculty and students who are ‘flip resistors’ or ‘flip
endorsers’ (McNally et al. 2017). Other educators challenge STEM scholars
to be more rigorous about their reasons for flipping classrooms in the first
place (Heyborne and Perrett 2016). Interestingly, fewer social scientists have
written about flipping social science classrooms. Those that have focus on
the advantages and the challenges of this approach, like the ability for faculty
to integrate scaffolded and recursive activities into the course (Sardi 2018),
the possibility that a flipped classroom could exacerbate existing inequalities
(Horn 2013), and the challenge of navigating students’ culturally constructed
understanding of what college learning ‘should be’ (Forsey et al. 2013). We
see great promise in the flipped classroom approach, though social scientists
are still learning how to manage its challenges and possibilities.
Despite the push from scholars like Patricia Roehling and colleagues
(2017) and Yvonne Luna and Stephanie Winters (2017) for more evaluation
of flipped social science classrooms, there is limited information for faculty
outside STEM fields who wish to design a course this way. Articles that
focus on flipped learning in the social sciences spotlight certain types of
activities or teaching techniques like screencasting (Auster 2016), the PTA
(prioritisation, translation, and analogisation) model of writing (Sardi 2018)
or integrating the flipped classroom into a Massive Online Open Courses or
MOOC (Forsey et al. 2013). We contribute to this literature by outlining how
we structured our flipped classroom over the whole semester and evaluating
how those choices impacted our students’ perceptions of their learning.
Our context and approach
We flipped the Introductory Sociology course at Brandeis University, a midsized research university outside of Boston. With 3,500 undergraduates and
2,000 graduate students, faculty work intensively with undergraduates, particularly in the social sciences. The Sociology Department requires all majors
to take an introductory course. Many first- and second-year students do so
to complete their general education requirements in the social sciences. The
introductory course is entitled ‘Order and Change in Society’ and is offered
in the fall and spring semesters, with enrolments ranging from thirty-five to
one hundred. We taught this course in the fall of 2018, and we had sixty-eight
students on our class roster, coming from all years and a range of actual or
intended majors.
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Over the last twenty years, several faculty have taught the introductory
class, and the instructor’s learning goals and assignments vary. We began
preparing our flipped course by identifying learning goals present across
course syllabi spanning from the early 2000s to the present. We also spoke
to department faculty about what they considered the most central learning
goals to guide our flipped design. We then structured the course around these
learning goals (see Table 1).
As a team, the authors thought focusing on these goals in a flipped context
would encourage students to do sociology and make it difficult for them not
to be engaged in the classroom and assignments. With support from a teaching grant and an instructional designer, we reframed the learning goals for
introductory sociology to reflect our emphasis on these particular objectives.
After setting the learning goals, we began developing the course structure
and building out the flipped classroom week by week.
Table 1. Set learning goals for Order and Change in Society Fall 2019
Learning
Goal
Description of the Learning Goal
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#1
Describe how sociologists conceive of questions and problems using
your ‘sociological imagination’. Use that imagination to develop a sociologically informed self-awareness and to describe situations in the
world in sociological terms.
#2
Define social structure and analyse how structural forces shape people’s daily experiences and opportunities in patterned ways. Define
agency and understand when, why, and how people have agency or
choice in daily life.
#3
Analyse several meanings of culture and describe how culture influences the ways people live and are socialised. Articulate how your life
has been shaped by the cultures in which you were raised and how
your experiences compare to someone who was raised in different
cultural contexts.
#4
Present and analyse data about inequalities based on gender, race,
class and sexuality in the contemporary United States and describe
how inequalities are evident in particular case studies. Relate data
about inequality to questions of identity in a range of case studies.
#5
Learn to more carefully listen, understand and engage with people
who are different from you along any number of axes. Develop more
personal comfort agreeing to disagree with others and holding that
disagreement in a professional rather than personal framework.
Flipping the classroom
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Structure of the course
When preparing a flipped classroom, the bulk of the work needs to be done
before the start of the semester. We went to work planning and structuring
the course in June to ensure it would be ready for the start of classes in
September. In addition to our efforts to craft learning goals tailored to our department’s brand of sociology and the flipped experience, we also developed
and sequenced a syllabus and curated materials for content delivery. This
introductory level class is a four-credit course that meets for fifty minutes,
three times a week. It has no prerequisites and meets for fifteen weeks over
one semester. To ensure that our students received materials in an order
that made sense, we broke the fifteen-week course into topical sections that
covered a broad scope of the discipline. These sections included weeks on
culture and socialisation, race, class and gender, micro and macro levels of
analysis, a case study about housing inequality, and an overview of sociology
as a discipline to name a few. When selecting the assigned materials for each
section, we drew from a variety of sources. In most flipped classrooms, the
instructor records lectures for students to view outside of class. Instead, we
required students to prepare for class by doing a range of activities, including
reading books, op-eds and journal articles, watching videos and completing
short exercises. To design the fifteen-week course, we curated the outside
prework that we expected students to complete before class.
During this curation process, we found that many of the authors on our
syllabus had excellent material that gave a face to a name and showed the
students concrete examples of what sociology looks like in practice. Some
weeks, we featured a broadly cited sociologist who had broken through to
the mainstream public. We assumed these scholars would have more podcast
appearances, public talks and other kinds of materials readily available. This
was not always the case. We supplemented these readings with related news
stories, videos, data sets, podcasts, or other online materials in instances
where we could not find materials related to a specific author’s work. This
blend of materials allowed students to engage with crucial course concepts.
After curating the materials for each class session, we set out to create appropriate assignments and fill out the rest of the syllabus.
In terms of our evaluation and assessment of students, grades broke down
in a way that reflected the flipped classroom structure. Attendance was worth
10 per cent of the final grade, preparation for class in the form of prework
was worth 20 per cent of the final grade, class participation was worth 10 per
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cent of the final grade and facilitating a student-led discussion was worth 10
per cent of the final grade. In terms of traditional assignments, we had two
written assignments worth 10 per cent each, a third worth 15 per cent, and
a final exam worth 15 per cent.
To assess attendance, one teaching assistant (TA) was responsible for
taking attendance at the start of each class. Students were expected to come
to every class and lost a point for each class they missed. A student who
never missed a class would receive a full ten points, whereas a student who
missed two classes would receive eight points. We allowed for flexibility with
our attendance policy if a student could notify us of an absence a week in
advance or in the case of an emergency. For class participation, we relied on
the small group leaders to give their assessment of student engagement. For
the most part, unless students were frequently absent or obviously disengaged, they received full credit for participation. We also provided students
with clear guidelines to set expectations for the student-led discussions but
kept it relatively flexible to encourage creativity and student empowerment.
Finally, we evaluated class preparation using the ‘pay to play’ model, explained in detail in the following section.
Additionally, to uphold the flipped structure, we designed innovative
and creative ways to assess students’ learning over the semester that we
did not grade but served as a marker for student learning and understanding. One of these assessments took the form of a ‘flipped midterm’ and a
‘flipped final’. While students did receive a grade on their final exam and
three other writing assignments, these flipped assessments were a low-stakes
activity that served to prepare students for the graded versions. We wrote
out approximately ten questions on flip chart paper and asked students to
walk around in a circle, take five minutes per question, answer the question
together as best as possible, and then move on to the next one. They were
encouraged to build on previous answers given by other groups or challenge
claims made in previous attempts to answer the question. We based our
questions on content areas we covered in class and were linked back to our
original course learning goals. In both the flipped midterm and the flipped
final, we saw that most students could take the core concepts listed in the
learning goals and apply them to the course materials and their personal
experiences in both assessments.
We designed all these components of the introductory course to facilitate
active learning and the doing of sociology. While this structure served us
well, implementation can be flexible. Our rule of thumb when creating as/ 76
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signments or ‘pay to play’ prework was to do what made the most sense
for that week in the broader context of the course. For faculty interested in
implementing this in a different context, this may serve as a starting point for
developing a flipped introductory course. While developing a course structure
and curating prework materials for the class created a strong foundation for
our flipped classroom, we also had to implement specific mechanisms over
the semester to ensure students had the opportunity to both learn sociology
and practice doing it. This meant prioritising active learning in small groups
and effectively preparing students before class so they could meaningfully
engage in the activities.
Active learning in class
Rooted in the traditions of active learning (Baepler et al. 2014), the flipped
classroom challenges students to produce and critically engage with knowledge (Eglitis et al. 2016). This relationship between flipped instruction and
active learning was central to our decision to implement this kind of course
structure. Jennifer Faust and Donald Paulson have defined active learning as
‘any learning activity engaged in by students in a classroom other than listening passively to an instructor’s lecture’ (1998: 4). As Allison King’s seminal
piece on active learning reminds us, ‘knowledge does not come packaged in
books, or journals, or computer disks (or professors’ and students’ heads)
to be transmitted intact from one to another. Those vessels contain information, not knowledge’ (1993: 30). When designing our course, we took this
reminder from King as a starting point and made sure learning was as an
active process of dialogue, not a passive process of information transfer. At
its core, the flipped classroom extends active learning through in-person and
online instruction inside and outside of the classroom to encourage critical
thinking skills.
We decided to leverage this connection between active learning and
flipped instruction by designing in-class active learning activities implemented in small groups. We prioritised the application of sociological concepts and skills in all written work and class activities. This meant crafting
daily activities for the class that connected the prework assigned to ‘doing’
sociology. Like the curating process, we created these activities before the
semester started to ensure they made sense in the broader course structure.
These activities ranged from group discussions, to coding children’s books,
to crafting a book review, to name a few examples. We recognised that this
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kind of course format was new to many students and that active learning can
sometimes seem like an abdication of teaching responsibilities. To mitigate
these challenges, we made it very clear on the first day of class that this
would be a different kind of learning environment and that active learning
would be central to the overall course design. Setting expectations early on
and explaining why the class might feel different was an important way to
prepare students to engage in active learning.
Small group meetings
Knowing that this was likely to be a comparatively large class in our institutional context, we organised students into small groups of ten. These small
groups worked together on various weekly group activities throughout the
semester. Three graduate TAs and three undergraduate peer TAs served as
group leaders alongside the course instructor to conduct these small groups.
These small group leaders served as facilitators rather than instructors and
made space for each group to set their norms and expectations. We intentionally structured the role of the group leader this way so students could be at
the centre of their learning. While leaders gave general directions and probed
the group to engage further with core concepts, they often allowed students
to control the flow and direction of the group’s learning.
We organised the groups in alphabetical order. To pre-empt any issues
in the small groups, we decided that the facilitators would swap midway
through the semester. We made the decision to swap to account for any
issues or challenges that could arise over the course of the semester. If a
group was really struggling with the material or if a TA was having a difficult time, this swap would allow a more experienced instructor to help
facilitate. When coordinating this swap, facilitators met and reflected on
the group dynamic and learning that had gone on over the first six weeks of
the semester. This allowed the primary instructor to switch into the group
that seemed to be having the most challenging time but did not disrupt the
positive group dynamics that had been forming. We did not experience any
significant challenges in any of the small groups, so the swap ended up being
random, but building this into the structure of the class allows for flexibility
and management of small group dynamics.
These small groups enabled the students to learn together and get to
know classmates. In an introductory class with a wide variety of majors and
years, it brought students together who otherwise may have never been in
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contact with one another in a course setting. Bringing students together in
these small groups also helped bring a discussion-based, small seminar feel
to an otherwise large and potentially impersonal class. These small groups
strengthened community ties in the classroom, providing a social resource
to students, and added an additional layer of accountability to encourage
student engagement. These groups also served as a primary space for implementing active learning activities that encouraged and empowered students
to practice flexing their sociological imagination.
‘Pay to play’
Finally, to ensure students were adequately prepared for the active learning
in these small groups, we developed a ‘pay to play’ model that held students accountable to the prework and allowed us to keep track of students’
progress, learning, and engagement with the course concepts. According to
university guidelines, students should spend nine hours per week preparing
for a four-credit class. For our introductory course, we asked students to use
this time to complete all class prework. This prework was a combination
of reading, watching, and listening to materials. We detailed the curation
process for gathering these materials earlier in this article. In addition to
assigned materials, we asked the students to complete a preparation check.
We created these mini-assessments for each class, and the structure differed
depending on the topics. Sometimes it took the form of a multiple-choice
exercise. Other times, it was a few short answer questions, and sometimes it was one long discussion question. To keep all these components
organised, we created a spreadsheet documenting the assigned prework,
the corresponding ‘pay to play’ preparation check, and the in-class active
learning activity for each class. The organisation and preparation of learning
materials before the semester started was crucial to the overall success of
the course.
We structured the syllabus and accompanying online course page so that
every class meeting had prework due the night before. We expected these
preparation checks would take no more than ten minutes if students had
engaged with the prework materials. These low-stakes prework assignments
were worth only two points per attempt but were worth 20 per cent of the
overall grade. These preparation checks were assessed on completion, not on
correctness. Each facilitator was responsible for reading and grading these
preparation checks. If a student made an effort to complete the assessment,
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they received a two. If it were clear that the student did not engage with the
prework, the student would receive a one. If students completely missed an
assignment, they would receive a zero, and we could check-in and address
any challenges students may be experiencing before it seriously impacted
their grades.
Aside from assigning points based on completion, facilitators responded
to each student by clarifying key concepts, asking additional questions,
and taking the time to show students that this was not just busywork. This
response took place over our online course platform, which has built-in
tools like a quiz feature. If such tools are not available, it is also possible to
ask students to keep and share a running document that the facilitator can
comment on and edit. We called this our ‘pay to play’ model, and it helped
us evaluate students’ progress outside of class and ensure that they were
prepared for the in-class active learning.
An example
To give a sense of what these three systems of accountability looked like
in practice, we will provide an example in this section. During the first few
weeks of class, we wanted to encourage students to think about how macro
structures influence their everyday lives. Before class, students read an introductory article about communities and cities written by a sociologist and
explored the websites of two cities close to the university, one of which is
considerably wealthier than the other. Then, in line with the ‘pay to play’
model previously described, they were given a set of instructions that guided
them through their exploration and a few questions that they were expected
to answer. We asked students to think about a situation – like a child ready
for kindergarten, a pothole, or a broken traffic light – and explore the resources in each city for getting assistance. We specifically asked them to find
one policy from each city that would shape how their situation would be
addressed. They were also asked to fill out a shared Google document before
class, so students could see what their peers had found.
In class, students were divided into groups based on the topic they chose.
While students normally stayed in their assigned groups, for this day, we
allowed them to pick whatever topic they found most interesting to insert
an opportunity for choice. We had groups focused on themes that emerged
in responses: pets, snow or garbage removal, public gatherings, education,
and so on. Students compared policies in each city in their small groups,
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illustrated these comparisons on flip chart paper, and talked about how
macro structures influence these differences. We then had a gallery walk,
where students walked around to see what each of the other groups found.
At the end of class, we brought everyone back together. We debriefed on how
each city’s policies were evidence or factors in macro structures of inequality. Using these three core systems to structure our flipped design, we were
able to make space for students to practice using the concepts, which was a
central goal of this course.
Materials and methods
When we first designed this course, we knew that we wanted to gather information from students on their perceptions of the course. This data would
help us discern if we would try the flipped classroom again. We also knew
that we would not have any data from a ‘traditional’ introductory course for
comparison. Despite this limitation, we still felt that collecting some data
from students would provide us with helpful information and them the opportunity to give feedback on their learning experience. At the beginning of
the semester, students were asked to take a non-graded ‘pre-test’ to gather
information about their knowledge of key course concepts. Students completed the same set of questions as a ‘post-test’ at the end of the semester.
This provided us with a set of data about student’s perceptions of their
learning that we used to evaluate the flipped classroom.
The pre-tests and post-test, which provided the best though not ideal,
assessment data, asked students to respond to a set of Likert scale questions using a scale from one to five (one being strongly disagree, five being
strongly agree). There were twenty questions in total. Of the sixty-eight students who were on our final course roster, forty-nine completed the pre- and
post-test. (See Table 2 for all twenty questions.) We analysed this data by
calculating the mean difference between the pre-test and the post-test, which
gives us a preliminary look into the changes in students’ perceptions over
the semester. While we understand that because of the design of this study
we are unable to attribute changes in perception to the flipped structure
directly, this preliminary evidence serves as a call for further research about
the flipped classroom in the social sciences.
In addition to the Likert scale questions, there was also an open-ended
question at the end of the post-test. This question asked the students to
respond to the prompt, ‘What I got most out of this class was …’. Out of the
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Table 2. Pre/post-test questions thematically sorted by learning goals
Pre/Post-Test Questions
Pre-Test Post-Test
Mean
Thematically Sorted by Learning Goals
Mean
Mean Difference
Learning Goal One
I know what sociology is.
3.45
4.65
1.20**
I understand how to ask sociological research questions.
2.67
4.39
1.71**
I feel confident asking and answering a sociological
2.67
4.46
1.79**
question.
Learning Goal Two
I can explain the difference between structure and
2.61
4.55
1.94**
agency.
Learning Goal Three
N/A
Learning Goal Four
I know what it means to say gender is a social construct.
3.90
4.94
1.04**
I can explain what the federal poverty line is and where
1.96
3.96
2.00**
the calculation was developed.
I understand the purpose and daily work of the
2.57
4.27
1.69**
Census Bureau.
I am aware of the history of asking about race on the
2.69
4.59
1.90**
US Census.
I understand how eviction relates to poverty and
3.41
4.90
1.49**
inequality.
I can explain what it means to say the United States is
2.88
4.40
1.52**
a stratified society.
Learning Goal Five
I feel comfortable having conversations and debates
4.26
4.58
0.32*
with people who have different perspectives and beliefs
than me.
Research Methods
I know what a unit of analysis is.
2.55
4.04
1.49**
I know the difference between quantitative and
4.18
4.86
0.67**
qualitative research methods.
I feel confident working with different types of data.
3.51
4.29
0.78**
I know what the strengths and weaknesses are of the
1.71
4.41
2.69**
ethnographic method.
Miscellaneous
I can identify three sociologists outside of Brandeis
1.78
4.08
2.31**
University.
I have an understanding of the micro, meso, and macro
2.39
4.02
1.49**
levels of social organization.
I know how to distinguish an empirical argument from a
3.26
3.96
0.69**
normative argument.
I often use what I have learned in school to make sense
3.94
4.59
0.65**
of the world around me.
I know how to find an empirical research article in a
2.10
4.57
2.47**
sociological database in the library.
* p < .01; ** p < .001
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sixty-eight students on the final class roster, fifty-two students responded to
this question. For this article, the data collected in this section was invaluable. We coded this qualitative data inductively to uncover central themes.
The three authors completed an initial code of these data to identify key
themes in students’ perceptions of the course and their learning throughout.
We then coded the document a second time using these themes for a more
systematic approach. In the following section, we discuss our findings from
our data. Our preliminary assessment supports the results reported by other
scholars on the efficacy of the flipped classroom approach.
Discussion
Using the data that we collected over the semester, we found many strengths
of the flipped classroom. In our experience, students were deeply engaged
with the material. Using our learning goals as markers of progress, we evaluated all of the data we collected within the context of these five goals to
analyse what students learned over the semester.
As shown in Table 1, Learning Goal One reads: ‘Students will be able to
describe how sociologists conceive of questions and problems using your
“sociological imagination”. Use that imagination to develop a sociologically
informed self-awareness and to describe situations in the world in sociological terms’. Between the start and end of the semester, students perceived that
their sociological imaginations were strengthened. As previously mentioned,
the post-test asked students an open-ended question, ‘What I got most out of
this class is…’. About one-third of the students referenced their sociological
imagination in some form and reported that learning to think like a sociologist was a central take-home lesson from the course. In the words of one
student, ‘I gained the ability to utilise a sociological imagination to assess
the world around me and think about how an individual’s agency relates to
societal structures’. Another student claimed, ‘As my first sociology class as a
first-year, I was so impressed with this sociology class that it made me decide
to major in Sociology. I learned even more about what sociological questions
is [sic] and what sociology actually means and what [sociologists] study’. As
one student wrote, ‘[I gained] the ability to recognise patterns and phenomena through a sociological lens as well as exposure to significant pieces of
work by sociologists outside of Brandeis’. These shifts, along with their preand post-test responses and their success on assessments and in classroom
activities, reinforced the idea that students understood conceptually what
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a sociological imagination was and felt that their sociological imagination
had grown.
Learning Goals Two, Three, and Four are directly linked to the contentspecific learning goals for the course. These particular three learning goals
are likely found in some version in most introductory courses. In addition
to focusing on the sociological imagination, throughout the semester, we
discussed structure, agency, and the types of research designs and sociological research questions that enable scholars and students to understand
both. As seen in Table 1, Learning Goal Two states: ‘Students will be able
to define social structure and analyse how structural forces shape people’s
daily experiences and opportunities in patterned ways. Define agency and
understand when, why, and how people have agency or choice in daily life’.
Students’ responses to the open-ended questions indicate that they found
engaging with the concepts of structure and agency to be one of the more
impactful elements of the course. One student claimed,
I think the most powerful part about this class is that it forces students to
think about how certain things like eviction are actually heavily affected
by the structure of society. It really opens your eyes to the fact that many
things that seem separate from society are actually restricted or affected
by it. And much of what you think you may have agency over is actually
considerably affected by the structure of society.
Another student stated:
[I’ve gained] a better understanding of the world around me and how
specific social structures shapes the world from the institutional level to
social interactions. I now think more critically about inequality and feel
that I have more information to make a stronger argument as to why and
how people are systematically oppressed.
Not only do these statements indicate that students understood the concepts
of structure and agency, but they also highlight how students have begun to
use the concepts to make sense of the world around them.
The preliminary data collected from this course suggests that the flipped
classroom structure facilitates this movement from understanding to the application of concepts. This classroom structure holds students accountable
for the out-of-class prep work while also encouraging students’ engagement
in dynamic, active learning activities with their peers over the semester.
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Along with Learning Goals One and Two, our evidence suggests that the
flipped classroom allowed students to engage with Learning Goal Five. As
can be seen in Table 1, Learning Goal Five states: ‘Students will be able to
learn to more carefully listen, understand, and engage with people who
are different from you along any number of axes. Develop more personal
comfort agreeing to disagree with others and holding that disagreement in
a professional rather than personal framework’. We structured the Introduction to Sociology course to set aside a significant amount of time for small
group work in which students were encouraged to work through complex
problems. These groups met during class time as part of the flipped classroom structure. The small groups allowed them to work through the previous
night’s homework as a collective by completing various in-class activities.
Students responded to the open-ended question about what they got most
out of the class by claiming that discussion across differences was one of
the most significant overall takeaways from the course. One student stated,
‘Discussions with my peers allowed me to utilise language I read in our readings and become more comfortable vocalising my thoughts and experiences
with difficult topics’. Another student mentions, ‘Having open and honest
discussions with my fellow classmates helped me hear new perspectives I
had never heard before and allowed me to challenge some of my own ideas’.
Finally, a student claimed that they gained ‘a further understanding of the
inequalities in America that are usually avoided in discussion, as well as an
increased ability to learn how to have/start these discussions’. These findings
indicate that students were encouraged to grapple with complex, challenging issues and, in return, work to strengthen their sociological imaginations
throughout this flipped class. In addition to their reports on the value of
dialoguing across difference, we, as instructors, observed that this flipped
format encouraged group dialogue. The collective learning process aided in
the strengthening of students’ sociological imagination.
Conclusions
These data suggest that the flipped classroom provided a vehicle for our
students to engage with learning goals meaningfully and was particularly
helpful for meeting Learning Goals One and Five. This is not surprising, as
both of those learning goals were rooted in active learning, which the course
structure of a flipped classroom accommodates very well. We learned a great
deal from previous literature on flipped classrooms and saw that our findings
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Ann Ward, Aja Antoine and Wendy Cadge
pointed to many of the same conclusions. This one response summarises
and highlights all how we were able to encourage students to engage with
all our learning goals:
I learned how to use my sociological imagination to think about the world
around me – how people act and interact, how systems are set up, how
structure and agency are complicated aspects of every situation. I learned a
lot about several specific areas of sociological research, such as the housing
market with Matt Desmond’s book, and the process of masculinity with
C. J. Pascoe’s book. I also learned about topics such as gender, poverty
and race in a broader context. I loved hearing the guest speakers talk about
their research and learning how sociology is applied in the real world.
This engagement was facilitated by the flipped classroom structure, which
allowed students to collaborate in dynamic, active learning activities that
reinforced course learning goals. Because the flipped classroom design allows
for a significant amount of in-class time for group work and exploration of
complex concepts, we feel that students in this course were given more time
to practice ‘flexing’ their sociological imagination.
In the future, we hope more scholars will explore the impacts of implementing a flipped classroom in a sociology course, with specific attention
to how this course design encourages the development of the sociological
imagination. There are significant limitations with the data we collected,
primarily because it focuses mainly on students’ perceptions and a single
semester. We encourage future studies to expand on previous findings and
look toward other methods of evaluation. We also encourage studies that
take a more comparative and longitudinal look at flipping the classroom.
In addition to the limitations of our assessment data, there are practical limitations to consider when designing a flipped classroom. Finding an
adequate space on campus to house seventy students who needed to get
into breakout groups was difficult. Other scholars (Baepler et al. 2014) noted
that this space concern is critical to consider before beginning the design
process. We also spent significantly more time on course material preparation
than we would have for a traditional course. We attempted to mitigate this
by building the course shell before that semester started so that we had our
materials curated and posted to the online course platform beforehand. This
step was critical to our overall success and ability to keep the course running.
We recognise that this extra time might be a deterrent for instructors who
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are considering this method. One positive note we can give is that when we
ran this course for the second time, the time we spent on preparation was
close to zero. Finally, we recognise that not all instructors have access to TAs.
The TAs were integral to our ability to run smaller group activities and keep
up with prework submitted by students. If TAs are not available, a possible
solution could be to have more advanced undergraduates serve in this role
for some form of credit. It is also possible to allow the groups to operate
independently by pulling some insight from the literature on team-based
learning (Stein et al. 2016).
In a moment where instruction is shifting back and forth between online
and in-person for health and safety reasons, this course design could be
helpful. While we originally ran this course in person, it would be possible
to transform this class entirely online while still upholding the ‘pay to play’
model, the small group meetings, and the active learning in class. With the
breakout room feature available on many online platforms, the shift to virtual
would help mitigate some of the space concerns we previously mentioned.
Along with other scholars in the social sciences (Luna and Winters 2017;
Roehling et al. 2017), we call for more evaluation of the implementation of a
flipped model. While we were able to discern student’s perception of learning to assess actual learning more effectively, we encourage other scholars to
design a study of a flipped classroom that includes comparative data from a
traditional classroom. We also encourage future research to focus on different
kinds of courses at different levels of instruction. It would be interesting to
know if a flipped method is more or less effective in an introductory course
than in a higher-level course. We hope this preliminary attempt encourages
others to try this out in their introductory courses by providing some guidelines for implementing flipped learning in the sociology classroom.
Acknowledgments and funding
We are grateful for the support and funding we received from the Center
for Teaching and Learning at Brandeis University as a part of the Innovative
Teaching Grant programme. We are also thankful for the continuous support
provided by instructional designers at the Center for Teaching and Learning,
particularly Lance Eaton. Finally, we wish to thank Charlotte Powley and
Ahmed Sadiq for their help with data analysis.
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t
Ann Ward is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Brandeis University. Her
research interests include environmental sociology, social movements,
community-based research and qualitative methods. Her current
research explores the youth climate movement with particular focus
on the relationship between narrative, emotion and climate change.
Email: agward@brandeis.edu
Aja Antoine is a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her research interests are in the causes and consequences of inequality, sociology of the body and health, as well as qualitative research
methodology. Email: aantoine@brandeis.edu
Wendy Cadge is the Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanistic
Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University. She
teaches and writes about religion in the contemporary United States,
especially as related to health care, immigration, and sexuality.
Email: wcadge@brandeis.edu
t
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