For his Gen Ed course Science of the Physical Universe 29 The Climate Energy Challenge, Prof. Dan Schrag is trying a “semi flipped”  format this fall. For the first half of the semester, prior to attending class each week, students are expected to watch videos of lecture materials and take quizzes on the course website to confirm their understanding of concepts. During class, Prof. Schrag divides time between reviewing concepts introduced in the videos, answering students’ questions, and facilitating group breakout activities.

The videos, which were produced by multimedia producer Alex Griswold at the Harvard University Center for the Environment, show Prof. Schrag in his office presenting the concepts and are augmented with many visuals, whether still photographs, illustrations, or animated slides. Each week, students typically watch 6 to 8 clips, amounting to a total of about 45 to 80 minutes of video, and answer between 2 and 5 multiple choice questions after each clip.

Teaching staff organized the videos and quizzes into Canvas modules, making it easy for students to access and engage with the materials. In addition to Modules, the teaching staff also made a simple but effective use of other Canvas tools, for example leveraging the Assignment Group capability to categorize and weight all assignments for the course, and providing a summary of course topics covered every week through the Calendar Event feature.

The second half of the course is a design exercise.  Students are asked to design a low-carbon economy for the U.S., potentially by 2050, and defend the energy choices they make. This part of the class is not yet flipped, but the focus on the specific design exercise results in more active engagement than a normal lecture class.