The purpose of this project, completed with Dr. Joanne Jahnke-Wegner, was to “flip” the UWEC survey course History 114 to facilitate more discussion and critical thinking during class time. In my presentation, I will explore our main goals in flipping History 114, the advantages this model has over a traditional classroom, how the project worked in practice, and how I can apply this when I become a K-12 teacher. The main idea of flipping a classroom involves having students interact with material for the first time outside of class by completing readings, watching lectures, or interacting with other media. This frees up time during class to focus on group discussions. We aimed to bring the class more in line with our goals of developing students' critical thinking and historical skills, students developing their own opinions and conclusions, and increasing student engagement. After reading several books on the flipped pedagogy, we assessed the class, constructed lesson plans and instruction specifically suited for flipped learning, and implemented the plan in the fall semester of 2024. The results indicated that while time-consuming and challenging to implement, flipping a classroom facilitated a deeper understanding of historical concepts for students, who better achieved course goals.
