This paper offers an alternative approach to the traditional
flipped paradigm for the history classroom, an approach that
focuses on providing students with primary sources while
providing multiple opportunities for peer-to-peer and
student-to-instructor collaboration prior to the in-class
meeting via a hybrid or blended learning instructional format.
In this approach, the primary sources were directly related to
the course content being presented in the face-to-face
meeting. As such, they served as “raw data” for allowing
student engagement with the subject prior to class attendance
in the on-line forum thus requiring students to begin the
process of inquiry and collaboration.
Course Description and Objectives
This paper focuses on the use of this alternative
“flipped” instructional paradigm for an upper level history
offering on Nazi Germany. The course was an elective
offering at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, a two-year
upper division university serving a majority Hispanic and first
generation college population on the south side of San
Antonio. Of the twenty-six students enrolled in the course,
eighteen were male and eight were female, and slightly more
than half of the students were history majors. The
overarching student learning outcomes for the course focused
on the students’ ability to evaluate the rise of fascism in
Europe during the interwar period (1919-1939). Additionally,
students were expected to identify and analyze specific
political, social, cultural, and economic factors that led to the
end of Weimar democracy and the radicalization of German
politics with special emphasis on the role played by Adolf
Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party
(NSDAP or Nazi Party) in the development of the Third
Reich. Furthermore, the course analyzed the formulation and
evolution of Nazi policies in the period from 1933 through
1945 by focusing on the regime’s use of legislation,