Title: Flipped Learning Classroom Method in Higher Education
Author Name: Jim L. Lee
1. Introduction
Higher education by its actual wording and hierarchy is on a separate plane compared to K-12 education. However, the K-12 learning environment innovates in many creative ways in learning design as evidenced with flipped learning classrooms in high school (Finkel, 2012). Being on the front line of developmental education, elementary through high school instruction adapts with different models of learning for student performance and the preparation of learners for college and beyond. The advantages of increased student learning performance in flipped classrooms are well documented in the literature for K-12 environments (Akçayır & Akçayır, 2018). In contrast, many higher education institutions still suffer from the traditional model of using the classroom for extended lectures, presentations of information, and passive student learning.
The innovative flipped learning classroom changes the idea of learning as solely residing in the school classroom to one where learning also takes place at home or a virtual environment. The flipped learning or flipped classroom pedagogical model poses the question: what if students could view or pause an instructor’s lecture at will? And further, what if classrooms could be used for relationship building, collaboration, and problem solving to promote active student learners?
This e-book chapter considers the flipped classroom model in the higher education setting in two distinct areas: in the regular college course environment and in staff professional development. On one hand, the potential for innovative design in faculty pedagogy exists with instructional designers, technologists, and other staff dedicated to faculty development. With many delivery options including hybrid and asynchronous and synchronous online courses, new and seasoned faculty can benefit from innovative course design that focuses on engaging the student learner.
On the other hand, university staff members have opportunities to develop their skillset as new or experienced university employees. Upskilling and reskilling professional development courses provide employees ways to sharpen their workplace acumen with soft skills or technical training. In both cases an instructional designer has the ability to design the flipped learning model in the higher education environment to optimize classroom discussion, increase student engagement, and make better use of time and resources to achieving performance and learning objectives. The following video segment highlights a professor who flipped a law school class with success:
Murphy, E. (2015, Apr. 24).
2. Overview of the Case(s)
As administrative coordinator and learning & development specialist in human resources, I have been involved in professional development opportunities in higher education. Prior to the global pandemic, professional development delivery was primarily in classroom workshops led by a subject-matter expert instructor. In 2000, our office converted all courses to asynchronous delivery with LinkedIn Learning video content serving as subject-matter expert in lieu of a private instructor.
Getting perspectives from an instructional designer with experience in flipping a college classroom offers many insights. Field-tested experience with the design model captures the intentions, iterations, and outcomes of implementing a significant change in pedagogy compared to traditional teaching methodology. First, when a school or school district adopts a different learning approach or program, the intentionality of the change is to optimize learning outcomes while addressing performance or achievement deficiencies. At the classroom level when an instructor adopts a different teaching method, the goal of optimizing outcomes is similar since a wholesale change in methodology involves inherent risks. These negative consequences may include confusion or disagreement on the part of the students, inequities in technology availability, and decrease in educational outcomes.
Second, instructional design by iterative approach is one in which continual process improvements provide feedback mechanisms that allow for refinements (Cennamo & Kalk, 2019). Beneficial adjustments to instructional design aid designer and instructor alike for improved performance based on real-world, verbal feedback, formative assessments, and evaluative summatives. Additionally, studies highlight the effective use of the flipped classroom model with professional development opportunities in which teachers learn technology integration (Yurtseven Avci et al., 2020).
3. Solutions Implemented
In the case of the flipped classroom design in a university course, I interviewed two instructional designers (instructional designer I & II) who have experience with the innovative course design at the collegiate level. Instructional designer I (personal communication, Mar. 28, 2022) had experiential foundations with flipped classroom design in high school. He had a situation in which Advanced Placement (AP) science students underperformed on AP Exams. Since students were scoring in the range of 2s and 3s (scale of 1 to 5), he decided to change the instructional model with little to lose with the traditional classroom model—using class time for lectures and discussion and homework for additional practice—not working. By flipping the classroom, he had students watching brief, recorded videos of instructional content outside of class time. The next day in the classroom was spent on discussing and reviewing the content, questions and answers, classwork, and projects.
With this experience, the instructional designer I also designed a flipped classroom in a STEM course in a community college setting. While traditional college instruction relied on lecture-based models and outside homework assignments, the flipped model featured brief videos of content instruction. Technology for producing video content included Adobe Spark, PlayPosit, Amazon Web Service snowball device, and other “low-stakes” recorded lectures and content instruction. Valuable classroom time was devoted to discussion about the recorded content so exposure to content was increased. Also, the instructional designer I noted that student engagement increased. He characterized three methods of engagement: student to content engagement, (using notes and postings in video content), student to student (in and outside of classroom), and student to instructor engagement. Having multiple opportunities and venues for interactivity suggests that the flipped methodology allows for more time to build relationships, clarify concepts, and collaborate for projects and real-time work in class.
Another instructional designer that I interviewed (instructional designer II, personal communication, Apr. 1, 2022) provided additional considerations and benefits of the flipped classroom design. She initially highlighted many questions that instructional designers and instructors need to address prior to implementing a flipped classroom. Some educators are excited to attempt a different instructional method but do not fully understand the effort involved in flipping a classroom. Considerable planning and resources are needed to produce video content for outside classroom usage. Certainly, highly produced, time-consuming content is not the ideal goal compared to easily created content using available technology resources. PowerPoint presentations, mini video lectures, podcasts, journal and case articles, and existing Web content are appropriate content resources. The benefits for university students in a flipped classroom include lower anxiety about class notetaking, flexible time outside class for content immersion, and differentiated instruction during class time.
With the case of higher education staff development, I have designed and implemented professional development courses for university staff and faculty members for five years. While staff members are the primary audience, faculty instructors who manage student assistants and other staff also benefit from professional development opportunities to assist in management, supervision, and other workplace-related areas. Prior to the global pandemic, classroom instruction was the primary model with subject-matter expert instructors who presented workshop content. During the transition to virtual training, I converted professional development courses into synchronous and asynchronous online courses for ease of access and limitations of in-person contact. For the purposes of the flipped classroom model, elements of the design were incorporated into the courses. Instructional designer I acknowledges that only including portions of the flipped classroom design can still produce beneficial instructional and engagement outcomes. Thus, using LinkedIn Learning video content, journal articles, formative assessments, and interactivity through competency assessments, professional development courses still benefited from elements of the flipped model as student participants had the opportunity to learn content on their own time and interact with and perform a competency summative to demonstrate learning.
Implementing the flipped classroom model requires considerable instructional design planning and close coordination with the instructor, who remains the content-matter expert. The argument from proponents is that the model can be used in almost any classroom. The following video demonstrates that the flipped classroom can be successful in a large microbiology university classroom:
Emory University, (2015, June 8).
4. Outcomes
The learning outcomes and benefits in flipped classrooms highlight numerous advantages for students and instructors. Utilizing the synchronous, face-to-face classroom for meaningful discussion, content clarification, and student engagement is a strategic and resourceful instructional outcome that is contrasted in a traditional, lecture-based classroom. Higher education courses that value complex content can leverage valuable class resources for collaboration among students, instructor, and groups with more time for differentiated instruction and individual attention. Jonathan Bergmann, an early proponent and advocate of flipped classrooms, says, “A good education, whether you flip the classroom or not, is that’s all about . . . the relationship between the teacher and the student” (2013, Jul. 28).
In the cases of this e-book chapter, the benefits of flipped classrooms far exceed the disadvantages. For staff professional development with flipped classroom elements, the results were lower organization costs through e-learning platform and not instructional consultants, increased enrollment during pandemic conditions, and increased engagement through competency assessment communication. In the cases of the interviewed instructional designers, high school AP exam scores increased to 4s and 5s with 100% of students passing exams. Interestingly, instructional designer I mentioned that “tutors hated him, yet parents loved him” given that additional help became unnecessary when learning objectives were met and exceeded. Student engagement increased in college courses with the flipped classroom, and relationships were strengthened between instructor and students. Research studies also demonstrate that students who use recorded video lectures and materials outside class outperform their classmates who do not use flipped learning materials (Luttenberger et al., 2018).
In addition to the outcome of meaningful classroom time, student autonomy over their learning is a significant benefit for higher education students. Having the ability to access, pause, and replay digital content outside of the classroom centers the responsibility of learning on the student. Considerable content resources are increasingly available to instructional designers and faculty members. Khan Academy, a globally recognized leader in free video-based content, provides learning opportunities for a wide range of student levels in many content areas and contributes directly to flipped classrooms. TED-Ed augments e-learning with animated video content with a variety of content subjects so that instructors are not the sole producers of content deliverables. Also, scores of Web 2.0 resources are available to instructors and students to create, share, and collaborate with content outside the traditional classroom environment.
Finally, the instructional outcomes of the flipped classroom and any other instructional framework needs to be viewed in the larger context of the overall goal of formal education: developing lifelong learners. In elementary classes through university courses, the notion of learning content should not be limited to individual classes. Long-term learning strategies of e-learning technology and learning sciences should be incorporated into instructional design to provide students with the strategies and opportunities to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, and engaged learners in any setting.
5. Implications
Instructional designers and instructors in the higher education environment need to address considerable planning and decision-making aspects before flipping a classroom or course. In the cases of university staff professional development courses and college courses, personal experience as a learning & development specialist and the experiences of instructional designers demonstrate that the innovative design model can increase learning performance goals. Various modalities of e-learning, in-person classes, and blended learning cases presented demonstrate that students have the potential to be more engaged in their learning instead of passive receivers of information.
Two important considerations with flipped classrooms merit attention. First, technical resources and time to produce a battery of video or instructional content may be a limiting factor to flip a classroom. Having the available resources at a school or organization to assist instructors with creating content in apportioned sizes consisting of chunked lessons in 10- to 20-minute segments requires much planning, coordination, and dedication. Instructors have numerous technical tools to assist in the production of video-based instruction with an instructional designer or instructional technologist’s help. However, a growing number of online resources for flipped classroom content such as TED-Ed, Khan Academy, YouTube, and other resources can contribute to a school or organization’s library of video and instructional modules.
A second complicating element in the flipped classroom design depends on the availability and access of e-learning content outside the classroom. I posed this factor of whether students would regularly utilize e-learning materials before classroom discussions to the instructional designers whom I interviewed. They agreed that the model works for a classroom if the students take the responsibility to engage with the content outside of class before they returned to class. However, the instructional designers admitted that students not consistently viewing flipped content would not necessarily mean that the instructional model would fail. Many systems generate analytics so instructors know the extent of which content is viewed. Instead, instructional designer II added that the instructor would have an opportunity to differentiate in-class instruction based upon assessing the students. Group collaboration in class also presents students to inform each other on highlights of the content. She also proposed that instructors can provide brief quiz assessments in class for outside content accountability so that students take responsibility for their learning. Regarding the equity issue of whether all students have the means and opportunity to access e-learning content is a significant determination of a program’s success with the flipped classroom. While the concept that all students must have access to technology is growing, inequitable access persists. The instructional designers suggest that outside content can be low technology, such as podcasts or short-term printed handouts. Accordingly, schools are increasingly making technology available to students through loaned equipment to address inequities.
While the decision to implement a flipped classroom environment requires considerable forethought, the potential remains for realizing goals of increased proficiency, student engagement, and a more productive classroom. The recommendation is that instructional teams, schools, or organizations cooperate in the planning, video content production, and assessment so that one instructor does not bear the sole obligation of creating outside classroom content. When teams collaborate in the design, implementation, and evaluation of a flipped classroom environment, they can share the positive rewards in student achievement. Research and field-tested examples have demonstrated that innovative learning environments such as flipped learning classrooms can contribute to developing lifelong learners.
References
Akçayır, G., & Akçayır, M. (2018). The flipped classroom: A review of its advantages and challenges. Computers & Education, 126, 334–345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.07.021
Bergmann, Jon. (2013, Jul. 28). Jon Bergmann talks about flipped learning [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u1yfwzvnDI
Cennamo, Katherine, & Kalk, Debby. 2019. Real world instructional design: An iterative approach to designing learning experiences (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Emory University. (2015, June 8). Biology professor uses flipped classroom method [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx1QcIIBTfI
Finkel, E. (2012). Flipping the Script in K12. District Administration, 48(10), 28–30.
Instructional designer I. 2022. Interview with instructional designer by author. March 28.
Instructional designer II. 2022. Interview with instructional designer by author. April 1.
Luttenberger, S., Macher, D., Maidl, V., Rominger, C., Aydin, N., Paechter, M. (2018). Different patterns of university students’ integration of lecture podcasts, learning materials, and lecture attendance in a psychology course. Education and Information Technologies 23, 165–178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-017-9592-3
Murphy, E. [iteravi]. (2015, Apr. 24). The benefits of the flipped classroom in law school and higher education [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiT3jpHFyD8
Wired. (2018). TED-Ed, Khan Academy enable flipped classrooms. https://www.wired.com/insights/2012/03/flipped-classrooms/
Yong Wang. (2020). A study on college English high-efficiency class based on blended teaching mode of flipped classroom. Theory & Practice in Language Studies, 10(9), 1066–1071. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1009.08
Yurtseven Avci, Z., O’Dwyer, L. M., & Lawson, J. (2020). Designing effective professional development for technology integration in schools. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 36(2), 160–177.