38 | INSIGHT | INDUSTRY
Flipped: crazy, upside down, or spun in the air? The flipped classroom does indeed turn traditional pedagogy on its head. Instead of the lecturer or teacher giving a demonstration or talk to the students during contact hours, that input is offered online for students to experience at a moment convenient to them. Typically, this takes the form of a video, but it could also be a screencast or podcast. Contact time is then freed up for more interactive experiences: problem solving, collaboration or discussion. Like many trends in education, the notion is not
new. It’s how the Open University has run its courses for over 40 years. In days gone by the technique might have been called blended learning, and the principle forms a key part of massively open online courses. But flipped learning has a new imperative. The government recently endorsed FELTAG recommendations that all publicly funded further education courses should provide 10% of their provision online by 2015–16, rising to 50% by 2017–18. How long before higher education is next? As students become paying consumers, their expectations are rising. They are comfortable with video and they expect their learning to have elements of ‘gamification’ and interactivity. They also want classes to offer more than just a talking head.
Proven benefits On the ground, the benefits to teaching and learning are numerous. Instead of focusing on input, which can be time consuming, lecturers can use their scheduled time together for discussion or reproduction of the taught concepts. As the lecturer is not tied to the lectern, there may be more opportunity for interactive, co-operative activities and for them to pay more atention to individuals during contact time. They also have more time to steer the class away from misunderstandings and errors. Ketan Kothari, vice president of marketing at Edmodo online learning provider, said: “The goal is to help the teacher. She can then focus on the concepts, and to do what she does best which is to actually impart the knowledge. Our goal [at Edmodo] is not to make this another burden but to take away the mundane aspects of teaching.” Giving students control of the content they are
learning can help create more independent and reflective learners – which in turn leads to a deeper
level of learning. Those who need to spend longer understanding those concepts can take their own time to go over the input at home. An online repository of information is also invaluable for people who have missed classes. Frank Steiner, marketing manager at the University of London Computer Centre, an IT service provider to over 150 educational institutions across the UK, points out: “There is an expectation from students that they will be able to see their lectures later. It’s part of the consumerisation of IT.” If the BBC can do it, why not their university?
Current climate In the US, flipped learning has received considerable atention in the last six to seven years, especially in the schools sector. In the UK, the approach has been used for years in some disciplines, such as within the humanities. But in the past three years, universities have begun to turn increasingly to flipped learning. Frank Steiner identifies a common approach. Universities are starting to run pilot projects, for example, focused on specific departments, which are then scaled up if successful. Examples are the MBA programme at Durham University; maths and biosciences undergraduate programmes at Cardiff; and social sciences classrooms at the University of Bristol. In September 2014 Notingham Trent University hosted the first ever UK conference centred on the latest acronym, SCALE-UP, which stands for student-centred active learning environment with upside-down pedagogies.
Does it work? In a recent small-scale study of lecture capture which surveyed 1,000 City University students, 91% of learners used lecture recordings and 93% of them said it helped their exam revision and assignment preparation. But beyond that, flipped learning has been shown to create statistically significant
"INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON INPUT, WHICH CAN BE TIME CONSUMING, LECTURERS CAN USE THEIR SCHEDULED TIME TOGETHER FOR DISCUSSION OR REPRODUCTION OF THE TAUGHT CONCEPTS"
Camera image: Vanguard Visions CC BY 2. Lecture theatre: Sean MacEntee. Medical image: Tulane Public Relations CC BY 2
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