Teaching Electric Circuits using a modified flipped classroom approach

Abstract

This paper describes our initial effort to implement a flipped classroom approach to teach an Electric Circuits course. Prior to each scheduled class meeting, students are required to watch a recorded short lecture, which covers the topics in details and includes simple worked out problems. We have used Tablet PC in combination with PowerPoint, OneNote, and Camtasia as the capturing software, to produce the short-recorded lectures. We have also produced a set of narrated dynamically worked-out problems, with different difficulty levels that students are encouraged to watch. These recorded worked-out problems will complement the recorded lectures and help students with their problem solving skills. A typical lecture consists of a quick review of the concepts followed by solving more challenging problems, related to the lecture material. A more detailed discussion of this approach and the advantages and disadvantages of such a scheme are presented. The preliminary evaluations of the proposed approach by a group of students have been encouraging.