An Archival-based Flipped Classroom Implementation for Enhancing the Performance of Academically Struggling Students

Sharanabasaweshwara Asundi

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Student Success, Learning Strategies, and Retention in the Aerospace Industry
Tagged Division: Aerospace
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 10
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--34107
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/34107
Download Count: 318

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Sharanabasaweshwara Asundi Old Dominion University

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Sharan Asundi, a native of INDIA, is a Ph.D. from University of Florida working as an Assistant Professor of Space Systems Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Old Dominion University (ODU). Currently, he is engaged in several teaching and research activities, largely focused on furthering the Space Systems Engineering Program at ODU. He has engaged in research collaboration with NASA Goddard as a Science Collaborator and has been awarded grants by the U.S. Air Force, National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture to research Magnetic Mapping of Pico/Nano/Micro-Satellites and study the impact of magnetic field exposure on plant germination, growth. Dr. Asundi teaches courses in Space Systems Engineering and is actively engaged in collaboration with academic institutions in India. As part of invited visits, Dr. Asundi has conducted several short courses and workshops in Systems Engineering Based Design of PNMSats.

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Abstract

This research was undertaken at the author’s previous institution, which has a special status in Aerospace Engineering and shoulders the responsibility of graduating the most African Americans in Aerospace Engineering at an institution. Due to its established credibility, the university recruit aspirants from across the nation but particularly so from in and around its state. Quite often, the aspirants seeking a career in Aerospace Engineering are under prepared as freshman and it carries over even when they transition to becoming juniors and seniors. To maximize the chances of graduation for these under prepared students, several courses are repeated in the same year. To facilitate revision of the material presented in class, the author recorded his lectures as videos and archived them on YouTube – a popular online repository for multimedia content. Based on this archive, created over several years, the author implemented a flipped classroom model for an experimental offering of a course in Aerospace Engineering. The article discusses the need for a flipped classroom, the approach, and its impact on the students.

For several years now, the author has offered courses in aerospace engineering and two of them are core theory-based courses, which need to be taken by every student in the program. At large, the material presented in these courses is foundational and has very limited variations. To facilitate the students to review the material presented in class, the author would use a simple webcam and a microphone setup to record the lectures as videos and upload them on YouTube – a popular online repository for multimedia content. After several years of recording lecture videos and uploading them to YouTube, the author created a repository of hundreds of videos, which are several terabytes in size and collectively account for several thousand minutes of content delivery. As is usually the case in this program, a course was required to be offered to just four students, so they could have an opportunity to graduate. It is to be noted that the course participants of such a special offering are often those who have struggled to make steady progress. The author chose to use a flipped classroom model for the course, which would require students to watch snippets of the lecture recordings from the YouTube archive and come to the classroom. To encourage students’ participation, the author incorporated incentives to watch and comment on the video recording archive. The YouTube online multimedia repository provides inbuilt tools to edit the video recordings and create custom snippets relevant for the class participants. Although, it was evident that the participants benefitted from the flipped model offering, it was encouraging that the students developed a better understanding of the material. It was also evident that the students preferred a more animated presentation of the material as opposed to a practiced, mundane reading of the material on a webcam.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to move all classes online for the Spring 2020 and Summer 2020 semester, this limited research has been very useful in understanding the needs of the students. Due to his engagement in such a flipped classroom model research, the author at his current institution lead the effort to transition his department faculty to an online medium of instruction. For his efforts, the author received high accolade from his department head and colleagues.

Citation
Format

Asundi, S. (2020, June), An Archival-based Flipped Classroom Implementation for Enhancing the Performance of Academically Struggling Students Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34107

TY - CPAPER
AB - This research was undertaken at the author’s previous institution, which has a special status in Aerospace Engineering and shoulders the responsibility of graduating the most African Americans in Aerospace Engineering at an institution. Due to its established credibility, the university recruit aspirants from across the nation but particularly so from in and around its state. Quite often, the aspirants seeking a career in Aerospace Engineering are under prepared as freshman and it carries over even when they transition to becoming juniors and seniors. To maximize the chances of graduation for these under prepared students, several courses are repeated in the same year. To facilitate revision of the material presented in class, the author recorded his lectures as videos and archived them on YouTube – a popular online repository for multimedia content. Based on this archive, created over several years, the author implemented a flipped classroom model for an experimental offering of a course in Aerospace Engineering. The article discusses the need for a flipped classroom, the approach, and its impact on the students.

For several years now, the author has offered courses in aerospace engineering and two of them are core theory-based courses, which need to be taken by every student in the program. At large, the material presented in these courses is foundational and has very limited variations. To facilitate the students to review the material presented in class, the author would use a simple webcam and a microphone setup to record the lectures as videos and upload them on YouTube – a popular online repository for multimedia content. After several years of recording lecture videos and uploading them to YouTube, the author created a repository of hundreds of videos, which are several terabytes in size and collectively account for several thousand minutes of content delivery. As is usually the case in this program, a course was required to be offered to just four students, so they could have an opportunity to graduate. It is to be noted that the course participants of such a special offering are often those who have struggled to make steady progress. The author chose to use a flipped classroom model for the course, which would require students to watch snippets of the lecture recordings from the YouTube archive and come to the classroom. To encourage students’ participation, the author incorporated incentives to watch and comment on the video recording archive. The YouTube online multimedia repository provides inbuilt tools to edit the video recordings and create custom snippets relevant for the class participants. Although, it was evident that the participants benefitted from the flipped model offering, it was encouraging that the students developed a better understanding of the material. It was also evident that the students preferred a more animated presentation of the material as opposed to a practiced, mundane reading of the material on a webcam.

In view of the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to move all classes online for the Spring 2020 and Summer 2020 semester, this limited research has been very useful in understanding the needs of the students. Due to his engagement in such a flipped classroom model research, the author at his current institution lead the effort to transition his department faculty to an online medium of instruction. For his efforts, the author received high accolade from his department head and colleagues.
AU - Sharanabasaweshwara Asundi
CY - Virtual On line
DA - 2020/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - An Archival-based Flipped Classroom Implementation for Enhancing the Performance of Academically Struggling Students
UR - https://peer.asee.org/34107
DO - 10.18260/1-2--34107
ER -