Title: Flipped classrooms in K12 education
Author Name: Amanda
1. Introduction
Most adults are familiar with the traditional approach of K-12 classroom. This entails the teacher lecturing during class or some other teacher centered activity, followed by students practicing individually. Throughout the semester we have learned the importance of the learner centered approach. Flipped Learning is an alternative to the traditional approach that characterizes most learning environments. Students receive direct instruction individually and outside of class time rather than in a group dynamic. The group dynamic is then transformed into one of only practice, interaction, and collaboration while the instructor or teacher’s only goal is facilitation and guidance of the application of concepts learned individually. The direct instruction may require students to read, watch prerecorded lectures, supplemental videos, or solve problems outside of class (FLN, 2014). There are 4 factors that an environment must contain to be conducive to flipped learning: a flexible environment with timelines and due dates, a learning culture with a learner centered approach, intentional content created for students, and a professional educator. With the current COVID-19 pandemic rendering many classrooms virtual in oppose to face-to-face, this approach has been gaining traction and popularity among educators as class time is reduced and the use of technology must increase to maximize class time.
The increase in technology makes it important to consider effective methods for integrating these tools and resources into instruction (Reiser, 2018). One of the ten standards that teachers are rated on involves differentiated instruction within the classroom. A major advantage to the flipped classroom is that it greatly increases the teacher’s abilities to differentiate because students work at their own pace in the classroom (Finkel. 2012). This means that the students that need extra help can pause and rewind when necessary to solidify their understanding of the concepts and the students who are advanced can receive more challenging work.
2. Overview of the Case
The K-12 classroom represents students ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade. There is a tremendous amount of research over the flipped classroom approach in a higher education setting but not nearly a much in a K-12 setting. Implementing a flipped classroom for K-12 students may prove to be a bit more problematic. Generally the access to technology would be an issue across the board. According to Reiser, Finkel’s solution would be providing access to technology in the library before and after school, formatting content so students can view videos on their mobile devices or devices they can check out from the school library, and providing resources on DVDs or flash drives, which can also be checked out to students who do not have access to network resources from their homes. This would certainly help with that issue.
Not only is student access to online and resources a potential problem but also the development of metacognitive self-regulating strategies. These strategies are to control and monitor their cognition, motivation, and behavior in the learning process and the decision to use the metacognitive strategies. Because a flipped classroom also requires an amount of self-regulated learning, a case study by Ahlam Mohammed Al-Abdullatif set out to investigate the impact of a flipped classroom on the self-regulated learning and academic achievement of seventh-grade junior high school students.
In the case study, there were a total of 64 participants. 32 experienced a flipped classroom and 32 experienced the traditional classroom. This lasted for 2 months in a mathematics course. The learning procedure for the flipped classroom model followed the K-12 flipped classroom model from Lo and Hew including a combination of short quizzes at the start of the lessons, reviews of video lectures, small group or large group discussions, student presentations, and application projects. There was also a variation of in class learning activities that appeared to follow the guidelines of the flipped classroom approach. The main problem that arose was that students seem to lack the skills to practice rehearsing, a basic strategy influencing the attention and encoding processes of learning when studying the out-of-class learning activities. Another problem that arose was self regulation during the out of class activities, such as setting goals for learning, rehearsing, and understanding the content materials, and making changes and adjustments in cognitive learning strategies.
3. Solutions Implemented
During this case study, measuring tools were used to compare the traditional and flipped classroom approaches. One was a pre and post test of Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire, or MSLQ to examine self-regulated learning. The other was an achievement exam, a standardized test created by the teacher. Data was collected throughout this time. It was determined that the solution for the problems mentioned in the previous section relate to the learner’s foundation. According to Al-Abdullatif, it is recommended that when using the flipped classroom model, teachers must provide students with adequate training to ensure that all students possess the necessary self-regulation strategies, both cognitively and metacognitively, to perform successfully in this type of environment. It was also mentioned that this may have been a challenge because of the student’s unfamiliarity with the concept as they had been previously immersed in the traditional approach. This solution reinforces the main ideas of a flipped classroom because it supports a learner centered approach in which students are able to use the tools and resources provided by the teacher or instructor to accomplish a given learning task.
4. Outcomes
There were many findings during this case study.
- There were no statistically significant differences in the student responses on the MSLQ regarding their self-regulated learning between the traditional and flipped classroom groups. Students in both groups demonstrated a good-to-high level of practicing both the cognitive learning strategies and the metacognitive self-regulation strategies. However, the flipped classroom model positively influenced the student participants in the flipped classroom in practicing metacognitive self-regulating strategies and improved their metacognitive skills.
- There was no significant difference between the traditional and flipped classroom groups regarding achievement scores.
- There was, however, a positive correlation between self-regulated strategies and academic achievement scores in the flipped classroom group, which means students with a adequate level of self regulation were more likely to enhance their academic performance in the flipped learning environment.
5. Implications
In the flipped classroom learning environment, the level of students’ self-regulation to select and use various cognitive learning strategies significantly contributes to their learning performance. Although self-regulated strategies were the same in both environments, metacognitive skills were practiced and perfected more in the flipped classroom environment. Metacognitive skills are associated with improved learning which is an important life skill. This implies that the active role that students played in their planning, monitoring, and regulation of their learning and deciding which strategies worked best for them.
There is a relationship between self-regulated strategies and academic achievement that was found in this case study that can provide guidance for teachers on the implementation of the flipped classroom model in the K-12 classroom. Self-regulated strategies are a determining factor in the improvement of learning performance and the flipped classroom was a positive environment to develop and foster those skills. Overall, flipped classroom has a positive impact on students and their learning practices
References
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Al-Abdullatif, A. M. (2020). Investigating Self-Regulated Learning and Academic Achievement in an eLearning environment: The case of K-12 Flipped Classroom. Cogent Education. Retrieved December 2020. https://www.cogentoa.com/article/10.1080/2331186X.2020.1835145.pdf
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