Partially flipped: experiences using POGIL

Flipped learning is a general term used to describe several kinds of teaching techniques designed to engage students and inspire deep learning. Flipped learning often means that the lecture is provided in a format available outside of the classroom while the homework or other activities are done in the classroom where students get help from the Instructor or fellow students. [1] When educators decide to start to flip a class, they discover that recording all of the lectures so that they can be streamed online is a daunting task. Many begin by flipping only one or two lectures, creating a partially flipped class to test how well it works. A teaching technique promoted by the National Science Foundation is Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL). POGIL organizes students into teams of four or five team members. Each team member has a well-defined role to play while the team works through a POGIL activity. IT3510 is an Advanced Linux Administration class where POGIL activities were used as a partially flipped teaching technique. Several lessons were learned about implementing POGIL activities in an upper-division Information Technology (IT) course.