Flipping the CS1 and CS2 classrooms in Central Asia

In this paper, we report on our approach and preliminary observations of transitioning to a flipped classroom model of instruction for our first-year undergraduate programming courses. We believe that our situation is rather unique, in that we are doing so in the context of a newly-formed, Western-style university in Central Asia. Before the transition, our introductory programming course (in C), and our data structures course (in Java), were taught in a more traditional lecture-lab setting. Now, all lesson content is contained in online video lectures, which are embedded in our WordPress course pages. In-class time is now spent almost exclusively on students working through programming exercises in pairs, getting help from instructors and teaching assistants as needed.