The Benefits of “Flipping Early”
From the Experience of “Teaching” the Programming Methodology Course at Peradeniya
by Roshan Ragel with Nithya Kularatne and Udaree Kanewala
COVID-19 outbreak suddenly brought the whole world to a halt. The undergraduates of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Peradeniya, already having undergone many other such delays, were initially shocked by the news of another delay in March 2020. But before long, things started progressing on an online platform. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!
Programming Methodology is a second-year course that holds particular importance as it is the introductory course where fresh Computer Engineering undergraduates are introduced to programming. It is a highly practical oriented “hands-on based learning” course. In 2020, the course was followed by the E17 batch of students in the Department of Computer Engineering and was one of the best and the most systematically progressing courses on this new online platform. “WEEKS” turned to “COVID-19 WEEKS”, and the course started continuing.
Programming Methodology lectures followed the “flipped” classroom approach since the year 2016. It all began with reference to Eric Mazur, a professor from Harvard who developed a strategy known as peer instruction. The flipped classroom lectures included a reading exercise/assignment and identifying a confusion matrix through online discussion and Q&A. Reading assignments were given based on the lessons covered using a versatile reading tool called “Perusall” to cover the self-paced learning aspects. This social learning platform helped the students to be assessed mainly in the content, clarification, engagement, and explanation aspects. In-class exercises were done using the clicker tool — Socrative, where students were presented with computer programs and questions related to them so that they get a revision with an added aspect of fun due to the game-like structure of Socrative.
Making a breakthrough from the usual lecturing and discussing, peer-instruction was brought in to motivate students to engage themselves more deeply in the content during class, allowing them to take a few minutes to formulate their answers to these questions and then work in small groups to arrive at a consensus. Here, the students are expected to explain their understanding to their peers, who initially had a less clear understanding. This was later on taken over by the instructor/lecturer to provide further clarification as needed. The usual lecture also included a final in-class exercise with the clicker tool, and in-class reinforcement of the answer was done with explanation and more similar example problem solving was done by the lecturer.
All these aspects covered during the pre-COVID-19 period were followed in the same manner on the online platform even during the study-from-home period after the COVID-19 outbreak. Usual online tools continued to be used, and the “lectures” were conducted through Zoom to maintain the synchronous nature of a typical lecture. Break-out rooms were used for peer instruction, and a Zoom poll was used to get certain feedback from the students.
Faculty of Engineering e-Learning System (FEeLS), the LMS of the Faculty of Engineering, has been used over the years as a mode of communication between the students, lecturers, and instructors. Sharing course-related material, submissions, important notices, student discussions, displaying marks, etc. were made through the FEeLS. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the recorded Zoom lectures were also uploaded to FEeLS so that those who were unable to come online due to specific difficulties can access them later. Even though FEeLS was sufficient under normal circumstances, switching to an entire online platform to make the day-to-day discussions and communication quicker and more convenient, a WhatsApp group named by the course code was formed with the students, instructors and the lecturer.
The physical interaction with students was lost when transferring to all-online. The students could still participate in the Zoom session and stay muted while paying no attention to what’s been said or working on something else. However, these distractions were minimised due to the peer-instruction aspect which requires the active participation of the students. Also, the knowledge and ability to apply the knowledge were tested quite often through the labs, homework assignments, and mini-projects which further reduced the space for a student to get detached from the course.
Considering the nature of this course, the properly guided conduct of labs is also essential. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the lab exercises were done in a lab where all the students would work in a physical environment on separate machines, with the instructors walking around, attending to the students in the case of any issue or doubt. Shifting this lab class behaviour to an online platform was challenging. However, the use of online tools such as HackerRank for coding the solutions to the lab exercises even before the COVID-19 outbreak was an advantage when shifting to the online platform. HackerRank is a technical assessment platform used by recruiting companies to conduct online coding tests and interviews, which has support for auto-testing and marking of labs.
The WhatsApp group that was created for the course became the virtual lab replacing the usual Computer Engineering Department’s lab. The lab sheets, lab exercises, and submissions continued the same way without any change. The usual “Good Afternoon” greetings done physically in the lab were substituted by a typed greeting on the chat. The Instructor-In-Charge monitored who starts the lab on time and who doesn’t while checking up on students who were late to start working on the lab or absent. Apart from the subject related issues that were the usual case, connectivity issues were also raised during these online lab sessions. A firm discipline had to be continued along with the flexibility and understanding so that the students with poor internet connections and lack of computer resources could also continue working on the lab amidst the poor resource setting. Such problems faced were addressed case by case and appropriate solutions were provided with amendments to the standard course disciplines.
During the usual lab sessions, with better physical interaction, a student could raise his/her hand in case of any doubt and an instructor would attend to the respective student to help him find a solution. However, in this online environment, students had to ask the questions in the chat and the clarifications were also posted on the chat. This made these clarifications visible to all the students, unlike as it was in the usual lab class. Even if the other students did not think of the same problem, the given solution could have helped the entire class gain a better understanding. Furthermore, the students were able to ask questions and get them clarified whenever they wanted (even after the allocated lab time, allowing flexibility), unlike in usual labs it was done on the lab premises only and students tend to rarely reach out for help outside the lab sessions. Another significant benefit was the ability of the instructors to share useful documents and reference links on the WhatsApp group. In the usual setting, the instructors would not get a chance to guide the student with such material. This would have helped the students to enhance their self-learning abilities as well.
Apart from the course WhatsApp group, there was also a separate group where the lecturer, instructor-in-charge, and casual instructors were participants. Third-year undergraduates were appointed for the course as casual instructors. Initially, the group was formed to share the lab sheet before the actual lab session and was not active during the lab session. However, with the shift to online lab sessions, this group became active even during the lab. It helped the instructors to discuss certain matters regarding the ongoing lab before announcing it to the students’ WhatsApp group which would not have been possible under the usual lab environment. This approach resulted in delivering a better experience to the students.
In addition to the lectures and labs, another important component of the Programming Methodology course was the mini-projects. These were conducted with the expectation of strengthening the understanding of fundamentals through the practical application of basic concepts and to give these beginners a glimpse of the larger projects they would engage themselves in, in the coming years. Students were allowed to work in pairs and a mid-project progress review was done in the form of a viva, to solve the issues they find in progressing and a minority of students, to make them start working on the project.
The same procedure continued after the COVID-19 outbreak with the online platform. The usual viva was replaced by one-to-one Zoom sessions with screen sharing. The weak internet connection was a challenge encountered by 3 out of 70 students in the class. Their sessions were rescheduled to weekends and were completed satisfactorily.
Even during the pre-COVID-19 time, the Programming Methodology course was done with a few changes from the traditional lecture delivery method, by using clicker tools, social learning platforms and technical assessment platforms. The usage of such aids made the course shift to all-online smoothly which did not involve major changes that were hard to get adopted by students. Usage of Zoom and WhatsApp as online synchronous modes of communication — which is the basic factor that is lost during an online platform, conducting the course became more convenient and also effective.
