The Inside-Out Classroom: A Win-Win Strategy for Teaching with Technology

As costs of higher education soar and many universities face uncertain funding models, institutional pressures have increased to improve instructor efficiency. At the same time, U.S. industry leaders and leading educators have called for improvements in engineering education based on more interactive, hands-on student learning experiences. Although many efforts have been made to take advantage of technology to either improve student learning or to maintain student learning while increasing instructor efficiency, few approaches have been shown to improve both learning and efficiency. A teaching method is proposed to improve student learning and increase student satisfaction while also addressing the instructors’ experience and the ongoing efficiency challenge. The approach is to essentially reverse the traditional model of lectures in a classroom and practice exercises for homework. Instead, the core knowledge content from a class is stored electronically for easy access by students through the internet. In the current study, this has taken the form of video-recorded instruction combined with interactive computer screen capture. The content is broken into digestible “chunks” of approximately ten to fifteen minutes, each corresponding to a key course topic. Students access the course content on-line at their own convenience. They take notes and complete practice tasks as requested in the instruction. The instructor records the content once, with only updates needed during future course offerings. During class meeting times, the instructor leads the students in “working sessions” that may include practice exercises, project work, or other hands-on learning. The instructor, as well as computers, textbooks, and the other students, are available as resources from which the students draw to complete the assignment. Since assignments must be completed and submitted for grade by the end of the class session, the students have an incentive to stay current and prepared in terms of watching the on-line instruction content. Instead of preparing for a formal lecture session, the instructor must simply be available during the working session to assist and coach the students through the assignment. The first efforts to utilize the method are described in the paper, complete with assessments of student learning and satisfaction. It is of particular interest to determine if learning styles and demographics of the students influence performance under the new class method. Course assignment and exam scores, compared to previous offerings of the course, will be used to assess performance. Surveys of the students will used to assess their time commitment, comfort level, perception of fairness, and overall satisfaction. Since the method can be thought of as shifting more of the learning burden to the students themselves, a survey will assess motivation and its effect on involvement and performance. An estimate is also made of instructor time efficiency, both in terms of the investment of creating the on-line content the first time and the overall time involved in teaching the class. It is expected that the method provides a more effective, satisfying learning experience for both the students and the instructor and that the increased instructor efficiency will appeal to institutions that are challenged with doing more with less.