As soon as I realized that Fall 2020 was going to be an upside down semester, I decided to also go upside down. Why not right? Having grown up in Erie, PA (between Buffalo and Cleveland), I find Long Island’s weather to be both beautiful and calm. Rain does happen but not that often. We could pull off an outside class for most of the semester, no problem. So I am doing this weird Hyflex thing (outside in-person / online asynchronous). No classroom, no rules right? Nothing to constrain us (except COVID-19 of course). This post only talks about the in-person part.

A friend of mine has been advocating for years that the shape of the college classroom is instrumental in how active an active learning classroom can be. I’ll be honest; initially I wasn’t convinced that shape of the classroom mattered. I had been running discussions in the traditional lecture hall for years. I’d think things like, the students always figured it out. In fact, this instructor was amazing at implementing active learning in the traditional lecture hall.

But then I got to teach in rooms that were designed for active learning. Holy cow, my friend was 100% right! The shape does matter. When students are sitting comfortably around a table they are able to interact significantly better. The same is true when students are standing up at the white board and solving problems together.

So I thought, let’s go big. Flip the classroom. Put most of the lectures online. We will meet in person, but only to solve problems and discuss. I imagined students sitting on the grass in circles talking (properly social distancing) about how to solve a particular physics problem, and I walking from circle to circle giving advice.

This is the “outside space” the university has assigned to me (HAHAHAHA – You can’t win):

My first semester class is a homerun though! Check this space out.

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