 Let's talk about the flip. I have been flipping my classes since 2012. That indicates to you that I am a huge fan of the flipped classroom. If I could bust out a backflip like, oh, boy, right here, you know I'd bust out that backflip. Unfortunately, I can't. We will not talk about that anymore. But there are a lot of things like there. First of all, we have to define what is it. Then I think it's really relevant to talk about why I do it and we'll wrap it up with a good solid defense for how the flipped classroom really isn't going to cost you more time than a traditional classroom would, or it shouldn't. So no matter what kind of class you take, there are always two stages to learning something new. The first stage is acquiring new content. And usually in a traditional classroom, you acquire new content through a lecture where a professor stands up there in the front of that, like, whoa, holy, like he is there, he's tiny, but he's there. And then all of you guys are in the audience listening to the new content being presented to you. If that's all you do, most of us. There are some people out there who can listen to new content and they do the processing. They do something with the content inside their own brains and that's adequate for them. Most of us have to actually do something active in order to get that information to stick in our brains. Learning is fascinating. Learning is actually changing your brain. You change the way your neurons connect to each other and communicate with each other. And if your brain doesn't change, then you don't learn something. For most of us, acquiring new content doesn't mean we actually learned it. We have to do something with that new content in order for it to stick in there. And then that, once it sticks, that's learning. Usually doing something with the new content is like homework. Like you get an assignment, you get some problems, you rewrite your notes at home. Sometimes you're expected to do something with the content even though your instructor actually holds you accountable for that doing something. In a flipped classroom, we switch that around and there are lots of reasons why this is beneficial. Let me tell you how you flip it. You sit in front of the computer or on your phone or whatever and you acquire content through a traditional lecture. I'm actually, what you get from me, this video lecture is exactly what you would get if I were standing in front of you delivering the content. I would ask you questions, you would have a chance to respond in real time, but dude, I hear from students all the time that they're talking to themselves in the library, it looks like they're talking to themselves, but they're actually talking to me while they're watching the video lectures. You do that on your own time. Take however long you need, rewind, watch it again, watch it in double time. Doesn't matter, do what you got to do to acquire the content on your own. And then when you come to class, instead of sitting there passively listening to me, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, you get to actually be challenged with some problems, we'll practice exams, we'll do some case studies, we'll play some games, we'll do some performances. Those are my favorites. As you do something in class, I get to say, oh, no, that's not how it is, let's fix it right now together. I tend to create activities for class that target issues, places where students in the past have had problems with the content, which, I mean, that's like, it's magic, because I know some things that might be particularly tricky for you, and so I can target them and help you fix those problems before you are studying on your own and reinforcing content that may or may not be perfect, perfect, perfect. So why did I do it? Well, I saw a presentation by a professor, a physics professor from Harvard, Eric Majer, and this guy, like, it was like a dream presentation because he flips his glasses and he does all these cool activities with clickers, and he, in his talk, he showed this slide. So this is a kid who, this is the brain activity of a kid who wore like a skin sensor for a week, and they just monitored how active his brain was in various scenarios. So you'll notice I've highlighted the place where he's in class, and I want you to just look at the amount of brain activity going on for this young laddy while he's in class. I want you to compare that to his brain activity while watching TV. Okay, I have a great job. I mean, who in the world has a better job than biology professor? I mean, this is fantastic. I get to talk about amazing stuff every day, and I'm actually getting paid for this. It's fantastic. So someone is investing money in me to stand in front of you while your brain is doing this. To me, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. When you're sleeping, your brain is doing more things than what your brain is doing when I'm lecturing at you in class. Take a look at what's happening during homework. Oh, look at how active this human's brain was when he was doing homework. Look at how active his brain was when he was doing, my mouse keeps disappearing, come back. When he's in lab. Lab is like this hands-on time where you get to mess with the stuff. Your brain is very active during that time. Look at how active his brain is while he's studying. My goal is to make it so that your brain is active when you're around me, so that I can help you in a better way than I can if your brain is doing this while you're acquiring new content. It's kind of inevitable that your brain would be here, and I'm okay with that. There are lots of ways to flip your classroom, and the way that I do it is through these video lectures. You could be reading textbooks. You could be creating, doing worksheets, taking online quizzes. There's a whole bunch of ways to do this. I am going the video lecture route, which someday you may have a conversation with me about the value of the video lecture, I don't know. But then when you come to class, we're going to do stuff. I do use clickers in class to facilitate the action. So that's the way that we structure the class and why I flip. The concern that I've heard, I don't even know if I've heard this concern for my students so much as I was concerned for my students when I first did this in 2012, I was worried that they would feel like they had to put in more time to my flipped class where they had to study and do these video lectures before coming, and that didn't feel right to me. I definitely knew that I would no longer have a job if my students felt like my class took 500 hours or somebody else's class takes five hours. What I'm going to tell you is my class takes a lot of time, but whether you flip or not, the classes take a lot of time. And it's because these classes, these biology classes are hard and there's no way around it. Whether you're taking anatomy, physio, general bio, botany, so it doesn't matter. Biology classes are challenging for people. There's a lot of new content. There's a whole new language that you have to learn. And so you're expected to put in some time. Most of these classes have three hours of lecture every week. Anatomy has two, but we won't talk about that too much. And most of them also have a lab component where you're putting in an additional three to six hours of time in class. But we all know regardless of how much time you put in class, we expect that you are also putting an additional two to three hours per credit unit for each of these classes, which means let's, all my classes that I teach are for credit hours, which means you're expected to put in eight to 12 additional hours. And this is the part that kind of blows my mind. That's to get a C. That's to pass. That's what's expected of you. Everybody's different. Some people can put in more time. Some people will put in less time and pass and get the grade that they want. But don't be fooled. It's true. You're going to have to put in a lot of time for a class like this. So if that's how much time you're putting in, if you're putting in those eight to 12 hours on your own, you know things that you're supposed to do during that time. You're supposed to rewrite your notes. You're supposed to do study questions. You're supposed to, like, process your lab content. You're supposed to prep, read the textbook. I mean, there's a million things that you do on your own. And then in the traditional classroom, the time on your own is without the instructor. So the new content comes at a time where instructors are like, dude, we got to go, we got to go. I have to give you this new content. There's a rush. I'm sorry we don't have time for that question. You want to talk about that further? You're going to have to come to my office hours. That's how we roll in a traditional classroom. In the flipped classroom, it's beautiful because you still are acquiring that new content with support of your instructor through videos or textbook or whatever, but then you come to class and you actually get to work on those tricky concepts with support. There is no time difference. If you look at this in the traditional class, you are expected to put in six to eight hours during class time. You're expected to put in eight to 12 hours on your own. All we're doing is we're flipping what you're doing during that time. Finally, it's going to be fun. Having that kind of class time, having that kind of focused scene and access to your instructor is sort of magic and that's why I continue to do it because I'll tell you right now. The flipped classroom is not less time for the instructor. It's the same amount of time for you if you are doing what you're supposed to be doing in your classes, but for me, it's like, I want to talk about how much extra time it is for me to flip my classes. But obviously, I've been doing it since 2012. I'm addicted. The benefits for learning are so big that it becomes worth it to me. All right, let's talk about how, if you're going to have to watch video lectures every single time you come to class, let's talk about where you're going to find those video lectures.