ExamScram

ExamScram is an online academic content publishing and delivery system. In 2014 its platform and its online Applied Calculus text supported eight Indiana University sections, with over 700 students, as part of an educational experiment on the efficacy of flip-mastery instruction. It is currently working with the Indiana University Education Department and the mathematics department of Bloomington High School North (BHSN) to support the latter’s eight sections of flipped PreCalculus.

Flipped courses require students to study new material at home and come prepared to work on problem sets in class the next day. Our team is designing materials that will be implemented at the end of spring break to the end of the school year.

The team has conducted literature review on flipped classrooms, analyzed the needs of high school students and instructors, and based on resulting findings – started creating the textbook. A typical structure of a textbook chapter includes: a fun introductory comic picture, simplified definition of a taught concept with examples, video lesson, textual summary, formative assessment (presented in the image below).

Roles: One of the most central elements of instructional design, which I was in charge of, was a video lecture that accompanied almost all of the lessons. These videos were created using software called VideoScribe, which allowed for a very expressive and fluent storyboarding, resulting in dynamic and engaging instructional material. Videos purposefully employ simple, understandable, informal, and jargon-free language. Additionally, videos are short (1 to 4 minutes) and enthusiastically narrated, following the principles supported by the literature on student engagement in video lessons.