How flipped learning can be used to engage large groups of students as well as manage teaching time more effectively.

1. Lecture flipping for control
engineers
Anthony Rossiter

2. Overview
1. What is lecture flipping?
2. Control resources to enable lecture
flipping.
3. Student evaluation.
4. Questions

3. LECTURE FLIPPING

4. The problem with lectures
• For learning to take place, students
must be active and emotionally
involved.
Many lectures encourage student
passivity.
• Lectures were required in years
before photocopiers, affordable
books, computers, etc as an efficient
mechanism for transmitting
information.
Nowadays, lectures are a notoriously poor way of
doing so efficiently, accurately and reliably.

5. Factors which enable learning
• Engaging resources (more senses), for
example include audio, video, games,
quizzes, authentic scenarios, etc.
• Encourage student activity.
• Encourage emotional response (for
example argue with your peers).
• Repetition – can be accessed as often as
required and whenever wanted.
• Can be paced to suit each individual.

6. Lecture flipping
• Students are given suitable resources to
engage with and learn the core material,
facts, theorems, concepts and so forth IN
THEIR OWN TIME (but before lecture)!
• Lecture time is used to promote deeper
engagement with the material. A common
tool is supported group based problem
solving as this enables students to learn
from each other and deepen their own
understanding by justifying their stance.

7. Caviat
• The most successful lecture flipping
examples in the literature tend to be based
on relatively small class sizes.
• Lectures are based in rooms where:
– Students can sit in groups around tables.
– Staff can easily circulate to guide and assist.
– Relationships can be built, students
recognised individually, etc.
– Students feel some peer pressure to prepare
adequately and contribute.

8. RESOURCES TO SUPPORT
LEARNING OF CONTROL

9. Control resources initiative
• IFAC does have plans to create a control
resources repository to benefit the world
wide community.
• Control education would be part of this.
• In the interim, the author has produced a
number of open access resources which
clearly have a Sheffield authorship so:
– Sheffield students will trust them.
– They are mutually consistent, systematic and
standalone.

10. Resources available
• Currently there are 6 main chapters but as the
resources are hosted on the web, the shape,
length and number of chapters is dynamic.
• Current content was initially focussed around the
authors lecture responsibilities although does
extend beyond that.
INTRODUCTION TO MODELLING
SIMPLE PHYSICAL SYSTEMS
INTRODUCTION TO FEEDBACK
INTRODUCTION TO SYSTEM
RESPONSES AND LAPLACE
CLASSICAL CONTROL
ANALYSIS AND
DESIGN
PREDICTIVE
CONTROL

11. A neat table of
contents (with
links) is available
on a website.
Each
chapter has
a number of
sections.

12. Each section has links to videos
on youtube and brief descriptions
of the content.
Source
powerpoint
/MATLAB
also
available.
ALSO ON UNIVERSITY
ITUNESU SITE

13. EVALUATION

14. International users
great As the explenations. resources I'm are a student on Youtube, from germany... many
and you
safed me! Thank you very much for your videos
international users have found and accessed
them and left complimentary comments.
THANK YOU!! In just a few minutes you cleared up a lot of
confusion • its just from great hours how of classtime carefully and u thought studying. of This making
is by far
the best explanation on gain and phase shift that I have ever
seen. Thanks again
HI DR, ROSSITER. I'M AN ITALIAN STUDENT AND I
WOULD LIKE TO THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR WORK.
YOUR CLASSES ARE ABSOLUTELY THE BEST I FOUND
ON INTERNET AND WAY, WAY BETTER THAN WHAT I
SAW FROM MY TEACHERS.
thank you so much for your videos, I understand bode plots
so much better now, greetings from Belgium !
these videos... many teachers just does not ffeel
the need to go through the basics.. but u always
introduce some fundamentals, basics before
explaining any concept... i know u put a lot of
thought process before making those videos
what the student needs and accordingly u
modified ur course materials and teaching
process...amazing jobs.. hats of to u ...

15. Staff perception
• The authors class sizes are 200-250 so are held in
normal tiered lecture theatres.
• Lectures were a lot more interactive and dynamic.
Students appeared much more engaged. Group
activities seemed effective.
• It is important to plan the lecture slot and student
activities carefully and to build in flexibility to
respond to what arises.
• With large classes you cannot keep everyone
happy! Very diverse and opposing views.
A SUBSTANTIAL MINORITY COULD NOT COPE WITH
THE REQUIREMENT TO PREPARE IN ADVANCE.

16. Student participation
I have looked at the
preparation videos:
A: Many times,
B: a few times,
C: once,
D: no.
Notably participation
by year 1 students was
significantly lower!

17. Student preparation
I have struggled with the
discipline of preparing
for lecture activities by
doing the suitable viewing
in advance:
strongly agree, agree,
neutral, disagree, no
comment.
Notably 65% of year 1
students struggled
with this discipline, so a
higher proportion!

18. Suitability for learning
Are the online videos
suitable for preparation
activities for lectures?
strongly agree, agree,
neutral, disagree, no
comment.
It is notable that a higher
proportion of year 1
students disagreed here.

19. Student discipline
The requirement to view
videos in advance of
lectures has enabled or
forced me to take more
control of my learning and
time management:
strongly agree, agree,
neutral, disagree, no
comment.
In this case
65% of year 1 students
did not agree!

20. Interactive lectures
I like having lecture time
focussed on discussion,
case studies and problem
solving:
strongly agree, agree,
neutral, disagree, no
comment.
20% of year
1 students disagreed
which is higher and 30%
wanted purely didactic
lectures!

21. I like the fact I can pause, rewind and
revisit topics as much as I need which
is not possible in an actual lecture.
A. Strongly agree
B. Agree
C. Neutral
D. Disagree
E. I have not tried to
use them yet.
51%
30%
6%
8%
5%
A. B. C. D. E.

22. Indicative quotes
1. The video notes provided by lecturer really helps in understanding the
concept and how to answer questions regarding the concept but it has
it's cons. In lecture students didn't learnt much if they did not watch the
video notes and came to lecture feeling lost because lecturer was not
really teaching but more to asking questions regarding the concept
covered in video which he presumed student finished watching.
2. Dr Rossiter's videos are very useful for learning everything we need.
3. The youtube videos were very helpful.
4. Videos too long, spend many hours watching them then don't have
enough time for doing practice questions.
5. Although it provided a lot of resourses, the lecture was running based on
the assumption that students watched the vidoes beforehand which
means at times we were in more pressure to study on the module when
there were other modules to study as well.

23. Summary
• Clear divide between students who appreciated the
approach and those who wanted ‘spoon-feeding’
lectures.
• Likely that need to reduce amount of preparation
(independent learning) required by year 1 students
who coped much less well than year 2.
• Most students very positive about the resources
themselves but many were not able to benefit from
the flipped lecture due to lack of discipline in their
preparation.
• The use of a tiered lecture theatre is a serious
impediment to more effective group work/learning.

24. Session Feedback
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session, via this URL
http://goo.gl/ReRYkH
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