Do You Use Flipped Classroom But the Students Don’t Read?

“It makes a lot of sense for students to study at home and do their homework at school with their teachers to guide them, but if they don’t read, everything falls apart.”

The online classes stemming from the pandemic made me reflect on my role as a teacher. I thought that if students were already spending all day connected to the Internet, what could I offer them that they could not find on Wikipedia? Popular wisdom says, “If you can’t fight the enemy, join him.” Well, I have spent more than one class helping my students “get the most out of” Wikipedia by reviewing the edit history, understanding the footnote system to find primary sources, studying the neutral writing style to discover ideological tensions, etc. However, sometimes I feel that what I do is like an admission of defeat. One day, yes, and one day, no; it feels like I am becoming irrelevant, replaced by artificial intelligence. When I don’t feel that way, I appease myself by saying that my job is to give context. Provide context to what exactly? Well, to the text that I assign in each class and that my students do not read. And then it does break my heart.

Because of the type of subjects I teach, sometimes highly “theoretical” and even “philosophical,” I feel I have few options when implementing a methodology that I like very much: the flipped classroom. It makes a lot of sense for students to study at home and “do homework” at school, with their teachers nearby to guide them. In my case, that “task” is the happy context mentioned above; in principle, it should be straightforward: the students read, we clarify questions in class, and then we spend time applying what is learned to some scenarios. However, if they don’t read, I have to “teach” and show examples hastily that, in the end, no one understands.

“My proposal is based on the metaphor of ‘locks.’ These locks offer certainty about future sessions and ensure that everyone has a minimum of preparation. In addition, they provide me with timely information on what is understood and not understood from the readings.”

Why give readings before class?

My desire to apply this work model, based on the idea of “inverting” home and classroom activities, derives from my experience in postgraduate courses where the most enriching sessions consisted only of talking about what was read. I am interested in sharing that experience with my college students. The difference is that our work is sometimes more practical, the kind of activity we call “homework,” and does not involve sophisticated discussions on complex topics. Moreover, with the advantage that the Internet gives access to audio and video resources by experts and professionals of all kinds, plus the abundance of readings in the Digital Library, there is no shortage of offerings to enrich the knowledge. On the other hand, from time to time, I have believed in surprise as a facilitator of learning, especially the idea of priming, which consists of implanting an idea to model behavior. In education, priming is used to “open the students’ minds” and prepare them for specific learning. With all this, it is clear that reading before class is fundamental to the type of sessions I want to have with my students, in which we form a community of learning and reflection.

The classic problem in this scenario is well known: we assign reading, and the students do not read it. Then, everything falls apart. The solution seems simple in principle: we apply a quiz with a few questions at the beginning of the class and assign a grade. The premise is that if the students do not read the assigned material, they will not know the answers, and the punitive weight of the poor grade will move them to read. It seems to me that this does not work because, at least in young children, the punitive environments tend to generate situations where dishonesty proliferates. Grades do not always yield useful information. Stress, memory, questionnaire design, and distracting factors all work against students, whether they read the assigned material or not.

“When in the reports I began to hear thanks for the presence of the audios – including someone who suggested that I do a podcast – I knew it had worked.”

Still, it makes sense to insist on some reading verification as part of the process. Exams can help the learning process, especially if they are implemented following techniques such as a “spaced review”, where the process of remembering something helps to strengthen the memory about it, as long as the memory occurs within a certain time of studying it. On the other hand, sleeping plays a significant role in memory consolidation, so the review’s ideal “spacing” period is within one day.

How to overcome the desire not to read?

Asking students to read before class and assessing their knowledge of the readings has multiple benefits. The problem is that various factors stand between us and the idyllic scenario where all the students know what we are talking about; we can ask them for information about what they read and even ask students questions randomly during class. What must I do to make this happen?

That was the question I entertained at the beginning of the pandemic while also thinking about what structure I should create for synchronous Zoom sessions to mitigate the fatigue caused by online classes. The solution came to me under the metaphor of “padlocks,” small tests that overcome the inertia of non-reading and reach my students. Perhaps, when I imagined the padlocks, I remembered my youth playing the famous Marathon with my family. When no one could answer the question, we moved the fateful black card. I was hearing the voices of my cousins shouting, “Ignorance is advancing!” Am I very Freudian if I say I am trying to correct my childhood by making the contest of “ignorance” be one of the obstacles? The fact is that these locks offer certainty about future sessions, prepare students for knowledge, shape the class, ensure that everyone has a minimum preparation, provide me timely information about what is understood and not understood from the readings, and guide everything to reflection and application. In short, it generates a “low risk” scenario in which a learning community that includes students and teachers can flourish.

• The first padlock mitigates the stress and punitive character of the assessment. I ask students to review the previous material, a reading, a YouTube video, a lecture, a podcast, and even songs, and report the reading in audio. The idea is to allow as much freedom in the process of remembering as possible. Instead of responding to specific questions, students remember what they find relevant and reflect on it. With this, I try to mitigate what the French call l’esprit de l’escalier (the spirit of the stairs), and the students know as “I remembered the answer as soon as I left t
  he exam.” Creating a friendly environment during the evaluation lowers the stress of the whole process and prevents students from giving up before they start.

• The second padlock is seldom respected, but it appears clearly in the instructions and is relevant. I ask students to record the report at least one day after they have reviewed the material. If at least one night’s sleep passes between the two events, what they remember is more likely to be more grounded in “long-term memory” and less in “working memory.” Some students mention in their reports that now they are following the instructions about the time between reading and recall, which makes me suppose that respect for this norm is somewhat an anomaly. Unfortunately, I have not yet found a “padlock for this padlock” that does not introduce additional complications.

• The third padlock is social: during class, after my introduction, I divide them into groups – the famous Zoom breakout rooms – to share impressions about the reading material. All the class activities (homework) have a score associated with a short report on that discussion in the rubric. If someone did not read, they have no choice but to hear about the reading in a condensed version.

The method is not infallible. During the past semester, due to a disastrous session in which the priming failed, I decided to do priming about the priming, using the same tool that I requested from the students. I started recording presentations and closing audios that commented on key points or focused only on a particular element. When I started receiving thanks in the reports about the presence of the audios, including someone who even suggested that I do a podcast, I knew it had worked.

Reflection

So far, the result has been favorable. Few students do not submit reports or present audios to discuss a reading they did not read. Better yet, as they upload the reports before class, I usually review some in time to make some adjustments to the content of the examples. Thus, it plays in my favor when they admit that they did not understand the material.

The challenge now is to adapt the strategy to face-to-face classes. In its current version, the isolation of the breakout rooms and the free time allowed by the relative confinement of the students is problematic. I do not know if face-to-face classes, with all their implications, will derail my small achievement; perhaps I will have to implement other padlocks or lighten the load or extension of the readings. For now, I enjoy my role as an accompanier.

About the author

Carlos Zermeño (gerardo.vargas@tec.mx) holds a Ph.D. in Humanistic Studies. His thesis was “Fantasticity, encounters with the monstrous and unstable identities in two Mexican novels: Patricia Laurent Kullick and Guadalupe Nettel.” He is a professor at Tecnologico de Monterrey, Toluca campus. He has participated in international journals and colloquia with academic works exploring the fantastic in Mexican literature and cinema. He was a Fonca Fellow, “Young Creators,” in 2013-2014 and is co-author of the book of essays Disturbing Concerns: Three Decades of Fantasy Literature in the State of Mexico (2012).

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Carlos Gerardo Zermeno Vargas

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