George Greco has gotten into flipping lately. The associate professor of chemistry isn’t ditching academia for real estate, instead he’s “flipping” his organic chemistry course, allowing students to watch lectures in their dorms and having them work on the material in the classroom.
The flipped classroom has been a change for Greco, who for years has held well-received 50-minute interactive lectures three times a week. “Many students have considered it a favorite science course,” he said.
Greco favors the pace that a chalkboard creates and was reluctant to embrace technology if it meant using PowerPoint. But he encountered ample research supporting the shift and noticed a trend toward embracing technology—including on Goucher’s own campus.
In his book Teaching Naked: How Moving Technology Out of Your College Classroom Will Improve Student Learning, President Bowen advocates for flipped classrooms, saying the best classes are places of “relaxed uncertainty, controversy, and discovery.” Additionally, he writes, “It is imperative that we stimulate both [students’] minds and their technology and not let them sit passively.”
“Our colleagues have been doing active learning for years, but the sciences have been kind of left out,” Greco said. So he dove in—really dove in, creating 86 videos of his lectures, a total of 14 hours, using a software program to pair the lecture videos with slides for students.
“What students like about it is they can go back if they missed something,” said Greco. “They’re not willing to read a textbook, but they’ll watch a video over and over.”
He first tried the flipped method in 2013 and gave an in-class survey after the first exam. Every one of his 43 students was in favor of keeping the flipped classroom, and more than 90 percent felt the videos were a clear representation of material.
Sheyla Medina is a post baccalaureate pre-med program student currently taking organic chemistry with Greco, the second such class he’s taught. Medina said she loves the flipped classroom and how it “demystifies” the lessons. “Watching the lectures beforehand allows me to pause on certain concepts that I have trouble with and plan my strategy for understanding,” she said.
Classmate Danielle Stern said she had been introduced to the idea of a flipped classroom while visiting a medical school over the summer. “I was a bit concerned, but after this course, it definitely seems like an advantage,” she said. “I feel like I am better prepared for the exams because I have a large arsenal of possible questions and have a lot of practice with working them out.” 
Greco said one of the largest advantages of the flipped classroom so far has been that many C students become B students while genuinely trying to understand material. “The class is about solving problems, not regurgitating content, so a flip works well for the course,” he said.
Results of Greco’s flipped-class approach have been encouraging. Grades are going up, and student surveys have been overwhelmingly positive, so he plans to continue to implement the teaching style more regularly.
He said anyone looking to flip their classroom should be prepared for the initial workload to create the videos, slides, and in-class work, and he acknowledges it helps to know the course and material well. But for the right class, he said, it can be well worth it.