Flipped classrooms are popular yet their effectiveness in improving student engagement and learning outcomes lacks the weight of evidence. This study explored both students and conveners of flipped classrooms with results suggesting that higher education students can be differentiated into two groups based on their preferences for flipped classroom elements:
- “Flip endorsers” – who embrace and prefer most aspects of a flipped classroom environment
- “Flip resisters” – who are fairly neutral on some aspects of a flipped classroom environment and particularly do not endorse the pre-learning aspects.
The findings help to understand which kinds of students might prefer flipped classrooms and importantly help identify those who may resist a change to a flipped classroom environment. Additionally, even if students find the flipped classroom more challenging, active participation in class activities and learning outcomes were shown to improve when:
- a theoretical perspective was used to inform the flipped teaching strategy
- assessment was integrated into the flipped classroom design
- entire topic was flipped.
Question: What is your flipped teaching strategy and what theoretical perspective underpins it? How will you evaluate its success?
Full article can be found:
Flipped classroom experiences: student preferences and flip strategy in a higher education context │ Higher Education (2016)
By McNally et al.
Contributed by Cassandra Hood