Flip the classroom to help students “think like an economist"

Among the different active learning strategies available, the flipped classroom has recently gained more momentum as a way to enhance learning in collegiate courses.   In this paper, we will discuss the learning outcomes that we encountered when we moved two large-enrollment introductory economics courses from a lecture based format with limited active learning strategies to virtually a fully flipped classroom shortly after the first midterm exam. The flipped classroom structure required students to: 1) watch a series of prerecorded mini-lectures - and sometimes review other online content - before coming to class; and 2) use the scheduled class time to do group problem solving and participate in small group discussions.  Using information from Sakai - the course learning management system - and the course evaluations, evidence suggests that the flip helped the students better understand the subject matter and made them feel more engaged with the subject matter and learning.  We also did a simple analysis to see what impact if any this method had on the second midterm exam score.  The evidence suggests that when controlling for student scores on the first midterm, the students who were fully engaged in the flip (i.e. they watched the lecture prior to class and participated in the class activities) were more successful on the second midterm than those that didn’t.  We plan to do a more detailed analysis of how this new learning technique affected student performance on the cumulative final exam and whether it increased performance on higher order thinking questions.