For 21 years, Palmyra Area High School teacher Amy Mateer taught her science classes in a rather conventional way.
During class, she explained concepts. Then, she assigned homework. Sometimes her students struggled with it, and felt frustrated. Sometimes parents trying to help them also were confused.
This year, she is trying something new.
It is called a flipped classroom, and in its basic practice, it reverses the conventional approach to teaching.
Mateer records short, 15-minute videos that her students watch at home, filling in a worksheet to show they are paying attention.
When they get to class, they do their homework problems, where they can consult with peers and ask Mateer questions. It also frees up more time for labs.
Before, Mateer said she could do a lab maybe once every two weeks. Now, she does two labs or similar hand-on activities twice a week. Kids learn better that way, she said.
The flipped classroom is a concept that is catching on nationwide. It is not yet common in the midstate, but a few teachers in area schools are experimenting with it.
In Lower Dauphin, chemistry teacher Tom Hanninen bases all his coursework on a flipped classroom concept, according to district spokesman Jim Hazen. Other teachers use it when students are facing particularly sticky lessons.
Mechanicsburg Area, Annville-Cleona, Derry Township and Carlisle school districts are also among the districts that have experimented with the concept.
Mechanicsburg Area Senior High School Principal David Harrisif said two teachers are trying it, in math and physics, "which are subjects that seem to lend themselves to that approach."
Student feedback has been positive, he said.
Ruth Still, a physics teacher at Hershey High School, has been trying a flipped classroom for about a year and a half and continues to tweak it.
It hasn't been without its glitches, she said, but “it allows me to be more reflective in my teaching, and it allows me to use face-to-face time a lot better.”
Some students were at first uncomfortable with the untraditional form, but seem to be adapting.
“In physics, applying the concepts is the thing,” she said. “Real-life situations allow the kids to learn how to use it instead of all the paper stuff. ... It gives meaning to why they are learning the science.”
Jane Wilburne, a professor of mathematics education at the Penn State Harrisburg campus, said the flipped classroom was a common topic at a recent conference she attended in State College.
“I believe it is a growing trend. It's gaining more and more popularity,” she said. “I think this is the way education will be. It's transferring the whole educational experience.”
On a recent Monday in Mateer's classroom, her ninth-grade honors physical science students were doing a lab about solutions, colloids and suspensions. They were mixing sugar, salt, iron filings, sulfur and tea bags into cold and hot water and observing the results. They added vinegar, alcohol or oil. They looked into microscopes. Then they wrote everything down on a data sheet.
They already had watched the video at home, so they knew what they were looking for.
Mateer flitted about the room, showing one student how to fold a filter paper, and another student what to look for under the microscope.
Students said they like it. They seemed engaged and active. They talked a lot, but about the experiment, not idle chatter.
“It's a lot different than any other classroom,” student Collin Young said. “You get to come in and just work. You don't waste class time. ... You can ask questions right away. ... You just have to raise your hand and she'll come right over.”
Young said he always watches the video and completes the notes at home, because otherwise he would not know what to do in the lab and he would not pass the quizzes or tests.
Natalie Kennedy said the concept is totally new for her, but “I like it a lot. Before, we didn't do the examples in class, and sometimes I was confused.”
Juliana Kerper said science is not her strong suit, “but this kind of science is interesting, I must admit.”
“I like the idea of testing things in the lab,” she said. “It helps me understand.”
When she watches the videos at home, she can pause them and review sections she doesn't immediately understand.
“It's nice because you can move at your own pace,” she said.
Mateer put the videos together on her own time over the summer. It did not take too long, she said, because she already had her lesson plans from her decades of teaching. Some teachers trying the flipped classroom process use pre-packaged videos like those supplied by the Khan Academy, a nonprofit educational website that supplies a free online collection of more than 4,000 video lessons.
She said it takes time to tape your lessons, but “once you have your library, it's going to be easier.”
Mateer is giving this year's students the same quizzes and tests she gave last year's students, and plans to compare the results. She also will compare results on the Keystone exams.
She suspects this year's students will end with a better understanding of concepts. It could take a couple of years before she has more conclusive results, she said.
She first decided to try the flipped classroom because she wanted to eke out more time for labs, but she now also gets fewer calls from parents and has discovered that students have become advocates for themselves.
The flipped classroom is a fairly new concept and there are not yet a lot of studies on its effectiveness.
Two chemistry teachers, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, were the first secondary school teachers to try it, in 2007 at Woodland Park High School in Colorado. They were awarded the 2009 presidential award for excellence in math and science teaching for their work and have written a book.
When they tried flipping their classrooms, students started collaborating more with each other and seemed to have a better mastery of the subjects. Sams spoke at the Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference last month in Hershey.
The videos are less important than the time they free up in the classroom, the authors say.
Critics worry what happens to students who don't have the right technology at home. Mateer said so far that has not been a problem in Palmyra. She can copy her lessons onto a CD, or thumb drive, or put them on the library's Kindle for students to take home.
In an article, Sams warned that a flipped classroom is not a panacea for all educational woes, and is just one tool teachers can use. It can be used in different ways.
Some teachers might try it just two or three days a week, for instance.
Mateer said she doesn't have to check on her honors students to make sure they are watching the videos, but for less-motivated students, she would check their notes more carefully.
She said it might not work in all classes, but it appears to work well in science.
Wilburne said less-motivated students will be more engaged than they would be just sitting in class and listening to a lecture.
“It's one approach to being able to effectively teach,” she said. “But it's only as effective as the teacher is in putting it all together.”
Mateer will talk about the flipped classroom at her next faculty meeting, and hopes some other teachers will embrace it.
“Give it a try, and if it's not working, modify it,” she said.
Mateer said it requires teachers to give up a bit of control, but it also puts more responsibility on the students to learn.
“Let them roll around in the curriculum a little bit,” she said.