Flipped learning – An Option for Everyone

“Let’s stop thinking that students will cheat whenever possible, and that also we have to avoid it at all costs. Let’s start trusting them and their desire to learn.” –Ken Bauer

Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach known to many teachers; however, not everyone has a clear vision of how it works, its fundamentals, and how to put it into practice in the face-to-face or virtual classroom. In this article, we present the most frequent questions that teachers have when they begin to use this pedagogical method.

There are many teachers like you who are carrying out an educational project related to flipped learning. In our webinar, we chat with Professor Ken Bauer, an expert on the subject, who helps us dispel questions and misconceptions.

“Flipped learning is not just about videos. We may also use other content like podcasts, newspapers, book chapters, digital articles, etc. It can be any content in different formats as long as it is intentional and targeted.” Says Ken Bauer.

This pedagogical approach boosts active learning and student participation. In this methodology, the teacher does not need to have control of the class; on the contrary, if the students are progressing, the professor guides and supports them, so they continue learning. Also, the teacher can intervene more effectively with the students, who vary in their levels of comprehension, so that the students can overcome their barriers to learning.

Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction is done outside the classroom. Teacher-student presential time is used to develop and perform meaningful and personalized learning activities (Edu Trends, 2014).

Questions and Answers

Webinar Flipped Learning – An Option for Everyone

1. Observatorio: How can I apply flipped learning in a computer class?

   (Ken Bauer): In my computer class, I started by changing the typical way that assignments are given every semester. Before, the students worked on them at home, but now they do them during class. In this way, they can ask me any questions as they learn by doing. In case they do not finish the exercises, I give them until midnight of that day to turn in the assignments. I recommend to teachers that during class time, the students work in pairs. It works very well. I remind you that flipped learning means taking advantage of class time and what happens there. It is the main distinction of this pedagogical approach. What happens before the class is preparation. What happens after the class is feedback about what occurred in the classroom.

2. (O): How do you get the students to commit to doing the assignment before the presential class?

   (KB): Somehow, we need to know if the students are indeed looking at the videos or material assigned to them before the class. I recommend the WSQ (Watch-Summarize-Question) methodology created by Crystal Kirch. We must teach students how to watch an educational video. It is not the same as watching any other kind of video. They have to take notes, they must think, pause the video, and return to it. Each student has to summarize what he or she is learning from that video. If they have questions, they indicate the minute-and-second point on the video where they are confused and send it to the teacher before going to class. The student who has no questions perhaps did not consult the videos. However, if they watched them and understood everything, I asked them to think of issues at a level considering what might be asked by someone who did see the video but did not understand the subject at some point. This way, you assure yourself that the students are committing to do the assignment before the class.

3. (O): How do you achieve the highest student academic performance using flipped learning?

   (KB): Here is where I have a conflict. Personally, my commitment as a teacher is to train students, people, and citizens to go about improving the country and our world. I don’t seek to fill them with content, although that is part of the learning process. On occasions, I have been asked to research the effectiveness of flipped learning through control groups. One class follows the traditional teaching method, and the other undergoes the flipped learning approach. Precisely, this is where I have the conflict: How are we going to measure this? Aspects like critical thinking, the digital identity of the students, learning to learn, and everything I develop in my students must be measured. A classic exam does not consider these types of results.

   The other consideration is that I do not care so much that my students improve in the mastery of subjects in general, because what interests me most is that this happens when they learn to learn independently. Besides, as known from Robert Talbert’s research on flipped learning, scientific results reveal that the grade average of the classes where flipped learning is applied does not improve. However, the studies where the average did improve involved students who had the lowest academic averages, and the more personalized attention from the teacher helped them. In my experience, I can tell you that I have had some students say to me, “I do not like flipped learning classes. I pay you to teach me not to make me learn by myself.” That is how some see it. However, after graduating, several students have come back to me and said, “Ken, thank you because now that I’m working, I have to learn a lot on my own. Thanks to you, I have had the opportunity to apply what you taught us in my professional life.” Learning to learn is a lifelong skill.

4. (O): What would happen if flipped learning is not applied correctly?

   (KB) The fear of change is reasonable for everyone, teachers, students, parents, managers, administration, bosses, etc. Somehow, everyone gets involved. If you are going to implement flipped learning, you must inform all of these groups to prepare for that resistance to change. I can tell you that 90 to 95% of my students do excellently and even say that the school “should implement it in all the classes.” However, there are always 5 to 10% who do not like change. They are probably going to let you know it and might even complain, affecting your overall teacher evaluation. Therefore, as I commented before, everyone has to prepare for the change and communicate it. I suggest you seek the backing of your directors before implementing a change in the classroom.

5. (O): Is it ok to use videos from other professionals in the community?

   (KB): Of course, it is. If we think about it, few of us teachers use textbooks written by ourselves to teach the class; on the contrary, we use the work of other experts, which is the correct thing to do. Using content fro
   m other experts is excellent, we must do it. However, consider that our students want to see their teachers, know what they think, and how their professors develop a topic or confront a problem, so the best thing is to make a mix of the content of yours and other teachers

Relive this webinar available at any time and know all the details of this exciting talk to integrate flipped learning into your teaching practice.

Ken Bauer has been an associate professor in the computer department at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, Guadalajara Campus since 1995. His study and teaching area are in software engineering and systems security, but his passion is teaching and educational innovation. He is an expert in flipped learning, has presented his work on pedagogical topics as a guest exhibitor in Australia, South Korea, Canada, the United States, and Colombia.

If your native language is not Spanish, you can activate the YouTube instant translation subtitles included in this article. To enable this option on YouTube, select the Subtitles option (the subtitles will appear in Spanish), choose the options Configuration ->Subtitles -> Translate Automatically and choose the language that you prefer.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Rubí Román – (rubi.roman@tec.mx) Editor of Edu bits articles and Webinars "Learnings that inspire"

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