Physics teacher makes “inverted classroom” at Hersey

Tom Davidsmeier, John Hersey High School physics teacher, decided to take advantage of today’s technology and reconstructed his junior honors physics class into what is being called “The Inverted Classroom.”

Presentations of material are prerecorded and posted online. Students can view these lectures any time. This way, they have the ability to pause or replay and watch again later as a review. After many of the lectures, there are short online quizzes.

When students arrive to class, they work on activities that involve the new ideas and topics from the online videos. Class time makes the instructor available to student questions or to catch common misconceptions. It also allows students to help each other.

“This really puts the responsibility on us to make sure we are prepared for the next day’s class,” says Jenna Borrelli.

Ideas similar to the inverted classroom have been used successfully by professionals such as Salman Khan, founder of the Kahn Academy, and Harvard University physics professor, Eric Mazur.

Davidsmeier is pleased with the initial success of the program and has already noticed an “increase in the pace of the course, with students able to move on to new material more quickly than with the traditional classroom arrangement.”