the flipped classroom: a design to engage students with...

The Flipped Classroom: A Design to Engage Students with Pre-Class Activities

Tom O’Mahony

[email protected]

Teaching and Learning Unit/Dept. of Electrical & Electronic Eng.,

Cork Institute of Technology,

Cork, Cork

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International Conference on Engaging Pedagogy (ICEP), Griffith College, Dublin Ireland, December 15, 2017

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Abstract

In higher education, the Flipped Classroom is receiving increasing attention as an

effective way of incorporating active learning without sacrificing content. For it to

work, the flipped classroom requires students to engage with recorded content prior to

class. Within the literature, a frequently cited concern relates to motivating students to

engage with these recordings. The contribution of this article is that it details one

approach towards achieving this goal. The approach contains of four features, namely,

the use of a partial flip, recorded screencasts, test questions and assigning marks. The

effectiveness of this design was evaluated by monitoring student engagement and

through the use of a student questionnaire that combined open and closed-ended

questions. An analysis of the data reveals that the design was very successful. Each

week, on average, over 90% of the students that took this module engaged with the

content prior to coming to class. The qualitative data revealed that the flipped classroom

supported learning through the pre-class test questions which helped students prepare

and through the recordings and the interactive nature of the face-to-face sessions both

of which facilitated understanding. Based on self-reported data, students spent twice as

long viewing the recording compared with the recording length. This may help staff

developing flipped classrooms to estimate the workload associated with this approach

and the overall findings may help staff to design effective flipped classrooms.

Keywords

Flipped Classroom, Inverted Classroom, Active Learning, Screencast, Action Research,

Student Engagement.


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1. Introduction

The student engagement agenda is high on the higher education radar at present – and

for good reason. Engaged students perform better on most measures of learning

(Kember, 2009). However, lectures remain the predominant form of instruction, despite

their tendency to foster passive and disengaged learners (Eison, 2010). Active learning

is being recognised as one mechanism to bridge this gap. Proponents argue that active

learning increases student engagement, motivation and there is convincing evidence

that it results in learning gains (Freeman, et al., 2014; Kember, 2009; Prince, 2004).

A concern for many staff as they consider applying the active learning pedagogy is the

negative impact that it will have on content. While there are other suggestions for

dealing with this (Felder et al., 2009), the flipped classroom is emerging as an effective

way of maintaining content and making room for active learning in the classroom

(DeLozier & Rhodes, 2017; Mason et al., 2013). The flipped classroom typically

involves recording some content and encouraging students to engage with this prior to

class. This then frees up contact time to allow for activities that develop understanding.

A key implementation question is how to encourage learners to engage with the content

prior to attending class? It is hoped that this article will be of benefit to academic staff

as it details one approach that motivated learners to engage with content prior to class.

This prior engagement then paves the way for more active approaches in class.

2. Review of the Literature on the Flipped Classroom

2.1 Definition and Characteristics of the Flipped Classroom

The flipped classroom can be defined as an “educational technique that consists of two

parts: interactive group learning activities inside the classroom, and direct computer-

based individual instruction outside the classroom” (Bishop & Verleger, 2013). The

norm is that learners are expected to engage with the instructional content prior to class.

Vanderbilt University’s Center For Teaching identify four key elements that help to

identify flipped classrooms, namely, they provide: an opportunity for students to gain

first exposure to content prior to class; an incentive for students to prepare for class; in‐

class activities that focus on higher‐level cognitive activities; a mechanism to assess

student understanding (Brame, 2013). Within higher education, part of the appeal of the

flipped classroom is that it combines lectures based on behaviourist principles with


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active learning strategies founded on constructivist ideologies (Bishop & Verleger,

2013). Consequently, the flipped classroom enables teachers to move from a

dominantly teacher-centred focus (i.e. the focus is on content transmission via lectures)

and adopt a more progressive, effective, learner-centred approach.

2.2 Active Learning in the Flipped Classroom

The key component of the flipped classroom is the use of active learning techniques in

the face-to-face sessions (DeLozier & Rhodes, 2017; Karabulut-Ilgu et al., 2017;

Mason et al., 2013). For the purposes of this article, active learning is defined as an

instructional methodology that requires students to engage in meaningful learning

activities and think about what they are doing. As a pedagogy it incorporates a wide

range of techniques including pauses (Bachhel & Thaman, 2014), minute papers (Stead,

2005) concept tests, peer instruction (Crouch & Mazur, 2001), pair-share, problem-

solving, student presentations. There is substantial evidence that active learning

promotes student engagement and high-quality learning outcomes (Prince 2004;

Freeman et al., 2014). However, the research base also suggests that, in order to reap

these dividends, academic staff need to develop skills and a conceptual understanding

(Andrews et al., 2011; Shekhar & Borrego, 2017). There is relatively little comparative

research on specific active learning techniques. In their review, DeLozier & Rhodes

(2016) highlight formative in-class testing (using standard MCQ’s, concept tests,

classroom response systems) as a particularly effective learning strategy. DeLozier &

Rhodes (2016) also acknowledge that group discussions appear to benefit learning but

that impact may be mitigated by factors such as the complexity of the task and the size

of the group. Hence, while active learning has been established as an effective

pedagogical approach, there is considerable variation in how it is implemented and this

variation may impact on its effectiveness.

2.3 Benefits of the Flipped Classroom Approach

The primary benefit of the flipped classroom is that it enables the introduction of active

learning without compromising on content (Mason et. al, 2013; DeLozier & Rhodes,

2016). When done well, the flipped classroom can enhance student engagement and

attendance, increase student satisfaction and improve learning outcomes (Karabulut-

Ilgu et al., 2017). The flipped classroom is often associated with developing


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professional skills around life-long learning, complex problem solving, learner

autonomy, interpersonal skills and critical thinking (Karabulut-Ilgu et al., 2017; Mason

et al., 2013; O’Flaherty & Phillips, 2015). Recording content and making that available

to be viewed prior to class introduces a degree of flexibility into the overall learning

environment (Karabulut-Ilgu et al., 2017). It also allows students to progress through

the recording at a pace that suits them, and when combined with the active learning in

the face-to-face sessions makes the overall learning-teaching environment more

personalised (Margulieux et al., 2013; O’Flaherty & Phillips, 2015).

2.4 Challenges associated with the Flipped Classroom

A key finding from the O’Flaherty & Philip (2015) scoping review was that “one of the

greatest obstacles was related to staff capacity to design, implement and evaluate the

effectiveness of their flipped classrooms” (ibid, p94). Motivating students to engage

with content prior to class can be challenging (Margulieux et al., 2013). Staff need to

be mindful of the overall student workload as “flipped classrooms can become a “course

and a half”” which adds to student resistance and encourages surface approaches to

learning (Margulieux et al., 2013 p12). Developing the recorded content and devising

meaningful learning activities is initially very time-consuming (Mason et al, 2013;

O'Flaherty & Phillips, 2015). While the asynchronous nature of the recordings adds

flexibility, it does mitigate against immediate responses to questions (Karabulut-Ilgu et

al., 2017). Finally, staff may face technical barriers around recording and editing video

and the effective use of technology in the classroom (Margulieux et al., 2013).

2.5 Impact of the Flipped Classroom

Based on its constructivist roots, flipped classrooms should help students correct

misconceptions and organize new knowledge effectively and, as a consequence develop

understanding. However, to date, there is paucity of rigorous, empirical research to

support statements like these (Yarbro et al., 2014). The available literature indicates

that the neither the format nor technology used to deliver video lectures substantially

influences student learning (DeLozier & Rhodes, 2016). Thus, the impact of the flipped

classroom should come from introducing active learning. As noted earlier, there is

substantial evidence to support active learning (Freeman et al., 2014). Not surprisingly

then, the emerging consensus is that, when compared against traditional classrooms,


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flipped classrooms tend to perform better on knowledge and conceptual tests

(Deslauries & Wieman, 2011; Karabulut-Ilgu et al., 2017; O’Flaherty & Phillips, 2015).

While there is indirect evidence of gains in student satisfaction and professional skills,

rigorous, direct evidence is lacking (O'Flaherty & Phillips, 2015). A second, general

consensus is that additional “systematic research investigating different components

and claims of flipped learning using various research methods is needed to establish

flipped learning as an effective pedagogical approach” (Karabulut-Ilgu et al., 2017, p8).

3. Research Method

Over the past ~10 years, the author has engaged in an action research process, see Figure

2.1, to enhance the teaching-learning environment. Beginning at the evaluation phase,

data is typically collected via an on-line student questionnaire that includes Likert-scale

and open-ended questions. Outcomes from this phase are used to reflect on the teaching-

learning environment and identify objectives for the next iteration. These objectives

form a plan which is implemented. The implementation phase itself, may call for mini-

cycles of this process where specific aspects are researched, acted upon and appraised

and these mini-cycles are supported by a reflection-in-action process (Schön, 1983).

Figure 2.1 – The Action Research Cycle

Given that background, the aim of this specific piece of research was to design a Flipped

Classroom experience, and evaluate the extent to which it would engage students and

improve the learning experience. The specific objectives are rooted in the module

context and detailed in section 4.2. A mixed methods approach was used to analyse the

data, with the results from quantitative questions being compared with the findings that

resulted from a thematic analysis of the open-ended questions. Convergence lends a

certain confidence to the findings and adds to the validity and reliability of the research

(Cohen et al., 2011).


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4. Implementation

4.1 Module Context

The module in question is a 4th year mandatory module that forms part of the BEng. in

Electronic Engineering at Cork Institute of Technology. It runs over 15 weeks, 13 of

which involve four hours contact time per week. This contact time is divided into two

hours of “lectures” and two hours of laboratory practice. The teaching methodology

would best be described as collaborative project-based learning (Mills & Treagust,

2016; O’Mahony, 2008). So, instead of individual discrete weekly laboratories,

students, in groups of four, work on a single project over the course of the semester.

The project is a practical design, test and implement type activity and the knowledge

requirements and phases of this project dictate the concepts and content of the lectures

that support this project. Increasingly, I have been including active learning into these

lectures with the consequence that content has been dropped from the module.

Assessment follows the social constructivist process model described by O’Donovan et

al. (2015) - see O’Mahony (2017) for details.

4.2 Objective of the Implementation

The purpose of introducing a partial flipped classroom into this learning environment

was to (1) recover some content that had been lost when active-learning lectures were

originally introduced (2) to facilitate more active learning to happen in the classroom

and (3) to enable students to develop an initial understanding prior to arriving in class.

Class, for this module means a continuous four-hour block (to facilitate part-time

students). Therefore, there is very little time between ideas being introduced and

students needing to apply them. Consequently, students often struggle with the

implementation and, too often, the nature of the project-based work tends to change

from independent learning to a tutorial. I was hoping that recorded lectures, released

ahead of the face-to-face sessions would address this issue.

4.3 Motivating Learners to Engage with Content Before Class

Motivating students to engage with content prior to class is a concern common to all

flipped classrooms. Four features of this implementation combined to address this issue,

namely, the use of a partial flip, recorded screencasts, test questions and assigning

marks. Given that this module also required learners to progress a collaborative project


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– it did not seem advisable to flip all of the lecture content and so a partial flipped

classroom model was adopted. The partial flip also helps to manage learner workload

in addition to the initial instructor workload (Honeycutt, 2016; Karabulut-Ilgu et al.,

2017). In this partial flip, prior content was presented as recordings rather than text-

based documents as it was felt that this would be more attractive and engaging for

students. O’Flaherty & Philips (2015) recommend that recordings be carefully

integrated with the face-to-face active-learning lectures and, it seems to me that this

would be easier to achieve if I developed the recordings myself (as opposed to finding

existing ones on-line). The literature also suggests that pre-recorded “videos don’t have

to have a high production quality” (Margulieux et al., 2013, p17; DeLozier & Rhodes,

2016). Hence screencasts of presentations slides were predominantly used. In line with

recommendation from Zappe et al. (2009), and with a view to managing the student

workload, the length of the pre-recorded video was 20 minutes or less. I was also

mindful that if the content was too challenging, students might not be able to make

sense of the ideas independently so the flipped content needed to be within their “zone

of proximal development” (Honeycutt, 2016; Vygotsky, 1978). Test questions are

frequently recommended as part of the before-class activity (Margulieux et al., 2013)

as they enable learners to self-assess and self-regulate and provide valuable instructor

feedback. As a final motivator, many implementations assign a small percentage of the

final grade to these before-class test questions. Inspired by Yelamarthi & Drake (2014)

this implementation assigned 10% of the final grade to the completion of the test

questions over the course of the semester. Student answers did not necessarily have to

be correct, but a reasonable attempt needed to be made. Hence the 10% was to

encourage engagement with the content prior to class.

4.4 Engaging Learners in Class

Each of the first two hours of the four-hour contact block typically followed the active

learning lecture cycle illustrated in Figure 4.1. In line with the constructivist

philosophy, the lecture would commence with an assessment of prior knowledge (or

address issues revealed by the before-class test questions). This would be followed by

a ~15 minute mini-lecture that focused on developing understanding of a single

concept. An activity would then either evaluate understanding or develop that

understanding or both. A second 20 minute lecture would be followed by an activity to


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Figure 4.1 – Structure of an Active-Learning Lecture

Figure 4.1 – Some key features of the flipped teaching-learning environment

develop or elaborate on understanding or summarise the lecture. The most common

formats for these activities were multiple choice conceptual questions, numerical

problems and minute papers. In a minority of sessions, the focus was on hour-long

design-type case-studies that were tackled by students in pairs. Figure 4.2 summarises

some of the key features of this teaching and learning environment. In comparison to

previous years, the main change that was implemented in this cycle was the “Before

Class” column.

5. Data, Analysis & Results

The flipped classroom intervention was analysed using student engagement metrics

associated with the before-class activities and via a student questionnaire. The student

questionnaire included five questions that were relevant to the flipped classroom


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intervention. These five questions are presented in Table 5.1. Questions 1 and 2 were

both open-ended questions, Q3 allowed for numeric values to be entered while

questions 4 and 5 were closed Likert-scale type questions. Questions 4 and 5 were

analysed by manually numerically encoding the selected option (based on the code

listed in Table 5.1) and the means were then calculated for Q3, Q4 and Q5. A thematic

analysis to the responses from Q1 and Q2 was performed by collating all comments

from each question, reading this text a number of times, highlighting key words and

then using the constant comparison method to identify significant themes (Ryan &

Bernard, 2003).

Figure 5.1 – Questions in the Questionnaire relevant to the Flipped Classroom

5.1 Findings

The data analytics option within the LMS Blackboard does not seem to record the

duration that learners spend viewing recordings. Therefore engagement was measured

using the before-class test questions. On average, over 90% of the 16 students that took

this module, completed the test questions each week and the average mark for this

component of the module was 8.8 (out of 10 marks).

Figure 5.2 presents the mean values computed in response to Q3, Q4 and Q5. The self-

reported time spent on the recording and test questions would suggest that students

seriously engaged with these materials. This would be consistent with, and account for,

the high average mark that was achieved on this assessment component. The disparity

between the recording length and time that students spend viewing it may account for


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Figure 5.2 – Mean values of student responses to Q3, Q4 and Q5

the frequency with which the literature warns us to be cognisant of the student workload

associated with the flipped classroom (Margulieux et al., 2013) and justifies the

decision to focus on a partial flip. Demanding more is only likely to have a counter-

intuitive impact – i.e. encourage a surface approach to learning (Ramsden, 2003).

The thematic analysis of student comments in response to Q1 revealed the flipped

classroom as a distinct theme and revealed some of the ways it impacted on learning.

For example, in relation to the collaborative design-type case-studies that were

introduced, students commented that “doing practical examples in the lecture with

common values allow the checking of work with peers which gives a better

understanding of topics. Other comments related to the recordings which “help a lot

when trying to understand a concept” and to the test questions which “gets me prepared

for the upcoming class”. They commented positively on how the face-to-face sessions

are more of “a class discussion to work out ideas [which] helps me to learn”. This

qualitative data correlates well with the average response to questions 4 and 5 where

students indicate that they “learn some things from all of the video recordings” and that

knowing “that the questions are there makes me pay more attention to the recording”.

The overall sense is that these various elements (recordings, questions, active learning

& case-studies) work together to help students learn the material.

6. Discussion & Conclusion

A commonly-cited concern of the flipped classroom is encouraging students to engage

with learning materials prior to class. This implementation went about addressing this

issue by implementing a partial flip which consisted of, at most, a 20-minute screencast

of presentation slides. Derived from the recording, learners were also required to answer

two questions prior to class. These questions helped facilitate self-assessment, provided

a focus for learning and provided me with feedback so that I could address


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misconceptions in the face-to-face sessions. 10% of the module grade was assigned to

encourage engagement with these two components. The student response was very

positive with over 90% of learners engaging with the test questions prior to class, and

students rated the recordings and questions as supporting learning.

My personal perspective was that the partial flipped classroom did succeed in

addressing objective no. 3 (section 4.2) as learners displayed a lot more independence

in tackling the project work and there were far fewer routine questions and little need

for tutorials during the practical hours. It also succeeded in addressing objective no 2

as I was able to develop and introduce a number of collaborative design-type case-

studies that would not have previously featured in the module. These were rated

favourably by students, who identified that being able to compare work with peers

helped to develop understanding. Finally, the partial flip was also successful in

addressing objective no 1 in that I was able to re-introduce a weeks worth of content

that had previously been dropped. This was despite the fact that, due to time-constraints,

I was only able to implement the flipped classroom about 50% of the time. In the

coming academic year it is intended to develop recordings for the other weeks and fully

address objective no 1.

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