Characterizations of Flipped Instruction: Mathematics Teaching Practices and Teachers' Enactment Zones

• In Event: Studying Flipped Mathematics Instruction in Secondary and Postsecondary Contexts

Abstract

Objective
The last decade has seen a proliferation of research studies investigating aspects of flipped instruction, resulting in assertions concerning student attitudes toward learning and increased student achievement in flipped classrooms (Talbert, 2014; Wilson, 2013). However, variation in what students actually do outside and inside the classroom across these studies makes it difficult to draw conclusions about flipped instruction across classroom contexts. To address this problem, this study situates flipped instruction as enactments of teaching practice and explores patterns in ways that teachers structure flipped instruction according to mathematics teaching practices (NCTM, 2014).

Theoretical Position
We recognize that teachers enact instructional strategies in response to many factors at work in their practice and classrooms. In this study, we observed flipped instruction in secondary and postsecondary classrooms and characterized the flipped instruction according to the mathematics teaching practices (NCTM, 2014) that were evident in the teachers’ enactments of instruction. Building on these initial characterizations, we applied Spillane’s (1999) model of teachers’ enactment zones to theorize the factors that might influence teachers to enact their chosen types of flipped instruction.

Data Sources & Methods of Inquiry
We observed six total lessons in algebra and precalculus classrooms (three in a secondary setting and three in a postsecondary setting). Four teachers participated—two secondary and two postsecondary. For each lesson, we used a fine-grained analysis of four aspects of flipped instruction: the video, the in-class lesson, the in-class student work, and the in-class whole class discussions. For each of these four aspects, we determined whether each of the 71 teacher and student actions for all mathematics teaching practices was observed, partially observed, or not observed. Three coders marked each action as observed, partially observed, or not observed and an average was taken across the three coders for the teacher and student actions within each teaching practice to characterize the strength of the presence of each mathematics teaching practice in each lesson. The team then analyzed the emerging types of flipped instruction in light of the pupil, professional, policy, private, and public factors that might influence teachers to enact those types of instruction based on Spillane’s model of teachers’ enactment zones (1999).

Findings
Two types of flipped classrooms were observed in this exploratory observational study: summary-and-application and launch-and-explore. An analysis of these results in light of the particulars of teachers’ enactment zones led to two additional hypothesized types of flipped classrooms: show and tell, and sharing student thinking.

Significance of Work
The broad variation in what students actually do outside of class and inside of class across flipped classroom studies is problematic. Constructing a common language with which researchers can articulate types of flipped instruction will help teachers and researchers better understand the affordances and constraints that particular types of flipped classrooms offer for supporting effective teaching practices and student learning.

Author

• Jeremy Strayer, Middle Tennessee State University