FLIPPING THE ONLINE GEOLOGY CLASSROOM

In the traditional sense of a flipped class, content is covered via video lecture that is viewed by the student on their own time. This allows the instructor to use in-class time to facilitate discussions, demonstrate techniques, and work directly with students. Online classes, typically are already flipped in this sense, but can go even further with the flipped concept and create a whole new educational experience.

In the modified online flipped classroom gone is the video lecture, gone are assignments of questions from the end of the chapter, and gone are multi-chapter exams. Instead, students are given guided instruction in which they learn the content via course and module objectives, reading assignments, reading quizzes, and a variety of technological resources. The textbook provides the gateway to the course, and is the basis of the module quizzes.

In applying this modified flip to an online Historical geology course, students were responsible for learning the content. The stated objectives for each module focused them to what they were to learn and the reading quiz gave them immediate feedback as to their understanding. Once the content was covered the class explored selected topics in more depth such as the Late Heavy Bombardment, cladistics, mass extinctions, and evolution of the horse. We made multiple use of Google Earth, spreadsheets, and interpretations of data, with a focus on "how do we know." They found the activities were challenging and they sometimes struggled, but were dedicated to completing each and every activity.