This document summarizes Donna Greene's presentation on using a flipped classroom model to enhance critical thinking skills in adult learners. Greene discusses challenges with traditional lecture-based teaching not developing critical thinking. She explored adult learning theory showing adults learn best through self-directed, hands-on experiences. Greene implemented a flipped classroom where students reviewed course content at home and spent class time applying knowledge through activities and discussions. She collaborated with the librarian Stella Baker to create online research guides helping students develop skills to independently find and evaluate scholarly sources. Greene believes this flipped model aligns better with how adults learn compared to traditional lecture-based teaching.

1. Donna Greene and Stella Baker Presenters
College of the Desert, Palm Desert, CA
Using a Flipped Classroom Model to
Enhance Critical Thinking Skills in the
Adult Learner
Let’s Go from This!
To This!!
NAEYC 2014
Dallas, Texas

2. • Why do we need to practice active learning for adults?
• How do children learn?
• Are children a different species?
• If our students have been taught sitting in lecture halls, taking notes,
taking quizzes and exams and writing papers- how do we expect
them to know how to implement play-based hands-on learning for
children?
• One to two semesters of Practicum won’t cut it!
We teach the way we were taught.

3. A Problem
• A response to this problem is often to insist that the adult student
complete activities that the children will. This does not work!
• Children are learning when they play, but what are the lessons?
• Are those the same lessons we want to teach our students?
• How can we expect our students to learn “other lessons” when we are
using the same materials that we use to teach children?
• Critical thinking skills are not taught with blocks to adults.
• I began to rethink my processes for teaching adults.

4. I went back to the books. How do my adult
students learn? Andragogy vs. Pedagogy
• Knowles (1968) – Assumptions about adult learners:
• Self-Concept: As a person matures, he or she moves from
dependency to self-directness.
• Experience: Adults draw upon their experiences to aid their learning.
• Readiness: The learning readiness of adults is closely related to the
assumption of new social roles.
• Orientation: As a person learns new knowledge, he or she wants to
apply it immediately in problem solving.
• Motivation (Later added): As a person matures, he or she receives
their motivation to learn from internal factors.

5. 7 Research Based Principles for Smart Teaching- Dr. Michel DiPietro
• 1- Prior knowledge can help or hinder learning
• Old incorrect knowledge may supersede new knowledge
• 2-Organization of knowledge
• Experts have rich complex mental structures-students have sparse superficial
• 3-Motivation
• How will this help me be successful?
• 4- Mastery
• Students must acquire skills, practice integration, know when to apply
• 5-Goal-Directed Practice coupled with explicit feedback enhances learning
• Driving and the expert blind spot
• 6-Students level of development and social climate interact to impact learning
• Accepting, resisting , passive- marginalizing, centralizing
• 7-Self-directed learners are self-aware
• Metacognitive strategies- assess a task, self evaluation, plan, apply strategies, monitor
performance, reflect and adjust – (students don’t do any of these)

6. • Kolb furthers the second definition of experiential learning by developing a
model which details learning process through experiences. Kolb and Fry's
(1975) experiential learning model is a continuous spiral process which
consists of four basic elements:
• Concrete experience
• Observation and reflection
• Forming abstract concepts
• Testing in new situations
• Immediate or concrete experiences are the basis for observation and
reflections. These reflections are assimilated and distilled into abstract
concepts from which new implications for action can be drawn (Kolb & Fry).
• According to Kolb and Fry (1975), the adult learner can enter the process at
any one of the elements. The adult learner moves to the next step once he or
she processes their experience in the previous step.
I Needed More Time in Class Working
on Critical Thinking Skills

7. The Questions
• What are the tasks that I expect of my students that should be taught
using adult learning strategies example?
• How do I integrate the correct amount of “play” with the more focused
learning adults need?
• How do I help my students learn to blend the lessons in my classrooms
into hands-on play-based activities for children that promote learning?
• I began implementing a flipped classroom model.

8. Tools for Flipping the Classroom
• What the recent research on student learning has concluded is that the more actively
students are involved in the learning process and take responsibility for their learning
outcomes, the greater are the learning results. --Todd M. Davis & Patricia Hillman
Murrell, Turning Teaching into Learning. ASHE-ERIC
• On Course Instructional Principles:
• Students construct learning primarily as a result of what they think, feel, and do (and
less so by what their instructors say and do). Consequently, in formal education, the
deepest learning is provided by a well-designed educational experience.
• The most effective learners are empowered learners, those characterized by self-responsibility,
self-motivation, self-management, interdependence, self-awareness,
life-long learning, emotional intelligence, and high self-esteem.
• At the intersection of a well-designed educational experience and an empowered
learner lies the opportunity for deep and transformational learning and the path to
success--academic, personal, and professional.
• http://oncourseworkshop.com/
Successful Learners and On Course

9. Betty Jones- Teaching Adults Revisited
• Adults learn complex tasks and concepts by doing them, then reflecting and
dialoging about them
• Teaching-learning relationships are build in small groups over time
• Teaching-learning partnerships are based on mutual respect
• Adult learners need to take initiative, make choices, act and react
• Learners should be doing more talking than the teachers
• Ask questions that you do not know the answer to
• Be clear about goals and expectations
• Assist learners in setting their own goals
• Pay attention to the needs of your learners
• Value diversity
• Students needs support and challenge to grow
• Use journal activities to allow everyone time to process thoughts
• The environment must feel safe for all

10. I Saved the Best for Last:
• I found that my students increasingly don’t know how to find, choose and
evaluate the peer-reviewed literature that I want them reading.
• Enter Stella! She came to our division meeting to discuss this new program the
college was using called a Lib Guide. I approached and asked if we could
collaborate on one for an infant and toddler class I was teaching. Here it is:
• library.collegeofthedesert.edu/ECE021Greene.
• And here is the flipped classroom Lib Guide she prepared for this presentation:
• http://library.collegeofthedesert.edu/naeyc
• Why I love Lib Guides:
• Lib guides help the instructor by:
• Providing instruction to students in how to use and access digital materials
• Force the students to begin critically analyzing information
• Help with building course materials from a professional librarian
• Lib guides enable my students to:
• Access the library resources they need 24/7
• Get specific journal articles, books and other materials that have been vetted
• Continue access to those resources after my class is completed

11. Questions?