There can be many factors to take into account in deciding the design of a course and adopting the right methods for teaching it, but one factor which I believe plays an important role and can affect our teaching methods is the type of courses and programs. Some courses like from the programs in human and social sciences can include discussions on different opinions and perspectives on the topics of the course. However, some other courses, for example, those that deal with the basics of the mathematics or teaching the fundamentals of a programming language, are most often a one-way lecture in the sense that facts, formulas, and methods are communicated by the teacher to the students and the students need to learn those basics. In such courses, there are usually not many points up for discussion. A concrete example of such cases could be when the basics of a network communication protocol is being taught to the students in a course on network technologies (usually part of computer science curriculum); where the topics do not deal with the difference of opinions. However, I think if the concept of flipped classrooms [1] are adopted for teaching of such courses, it can create more room and opportunities in the class for students to then share their opinions and have discussions, but again to a certain degree and probably not as much as can be done for other subjects such as in social sciences. Therefore, I believe it is very important the teachers pay attention to this factor and that their teaching methods need to be adapted and customized based on the nature of the topic they are teaching to provide the best value to the students. Otherwise, students might feel that they can learn the basics and facts more easily and flexibly on their own than by participating in the lectures.

It is also important to remember that sometimes students take courses from different types of programs as part of their university studies. So they may come to one course with the expectation that the teaching method is going to be the same as they experienced in another course (from a different subject). So the teaching method might seem a bit strange to them (in the beginning) or take time for them to get used to different styles and methods of teaching, and as teachers we need to be aware of this. Moreover, this might even cause resistance in some students against the methods of another course when they are not used to it. So maybe some activity that can improve such situations and cases is open communication with the students about the methods that we are going to apply in our course, and the motivation on why a particular method is chosen by us for that course and why we think it is best-suited for the topics of the course we are giving.

[1]  What Is a Flipped Classroom?; https://www.panopto.com/blog/what-is-a-flipped-classroom/ ; Published: Sep 17, 2018