To Flip: I Flip, You Flip, We Flip?

Dr. Christine SabiehProfessor, Notre Dame University, Lebanon

sabieh@hotmail.com

Twelve graduate students, also full-time school teachers, experienced “the flip”. Sabieh showed how flipping is powerful in that it facilitates learning, increases critical-thinking, creates a dynamic learning space, promotes responsible individualized learners and team-players, & measures application of knowledge, and showed the need for traditional testing to measure actual knowledge-acquisition

Introduction

Today, the bandwagon in education settings is to create flipped classrooms and flipped learning spaces to promote deeper understanding. The debate on whether or not this is true continues (Desantis et al. 2015; Deubel, 2013). For many educators, setting or instructional approach change is difficult and often cited as so; however, many do create and plan new challenges within their classroom environments (Tagg, 2012; Hughes, 2012; Henderson et al, 2011). Many educators are transforming their educational spaces into flipped classrooms. By reversing traditional instructional methodologies, introducing blended learning, and/or enriching endeavors by introducing technologies into the system makes ‘new’ settings sound like a miracle-fix. If educators have the set-up or mind-set to do so, the learning environment and the teaching/learning endeavor may well be on their way to assessing new learning approaches.

Purpose

According to Brownell and Tanner (2012), there continues to be a call for educators to undergo training to make the changes; this is time consuming and often lacks incentive since educators often are overwhelmed by all that they are expected to do; however, by acknowledging that a professional role change must accompany the whole experience the practice becomes a reality. The purpose of the study is twofold: First, to advocates that educators need to go through the experience of being in a flipped classroom and experiencing flipped learning endeavors; and, second, to advocate that along with formative and summative alternative assessments, there needs to be a summative traditional assessment done.

Making the Case for Flip

Musallam (2013) calls on teachers to nurture curiosity – to get students to think, use their imagination, to make sense out of their own self-paced learning endeavors. The literature to date promotes “the flip” (see for example Mazur, 1997; Lage, Platt & Treglia 2000; Bergmann & Sams, 2012; Hughes, 2012; Marshall, 2014; to Marshall, Sabieh, Bauer-Ramazani & Graney, 2015). Mazur (1997) had students pre-read the science material before class, then start class with a quiz to see if students read the material. The remainder of the class session would be divided up into mini concept lectures or demonstrations followed by a concept question to see if the students understood. Once each student answered the question with a clicker for him to be able to note the correct responses of those who understand, he would have them confer with a peer to discuss the answers; generating discussion and collaborating with ideas. He would then have them answer the same question using the clicker. The proportion of correct responses always showed an increase; concluding that the discussion with others enabled the students to share their reasoning and aided and taught those who had not understood the material at hand. The teacher feedback of student-knowledge acquisition was immediate, student attention and involvement were high, and there was never a gulf between the class understanding and the teacher’s expectation. “Best of all,” according to Mazur (1997), “the testing show[ed] this teaching style engenders a better understanding of the fundamental concepts and discourages a number of bad study habits such as rote memorization…. The students’ energy and enthusiasm during the discussion [were] contagious: once one [had] experienced it, it [was] difficult to revert to lecturing to a passive audience…”

Complementing peer interaction, collaborative work in and out of the class, project based learning, education games are diverse ways the flipped approach cultivates critical thinking (See Marshall, Sabieh, Bauer-Ramazani & Graney, 2015; Howard & McLauchlan, 2014; Lujan & DiCarlo, 2006. Moreover, the flip needs to address change being made to the teacher, the students, the focus on which learning theories and conditions to include, the content taught, the technology tools used, the instructional methods used, the activities planned and their assessment approaches, and the overall learning environment. Curriculum and lesson plans need to be re-designed to include technology as well as culture inquiry (MacKinnon, 2015; Crumley & Wynn, 2009; Lujan & DiCarlo, 2006). As Sabieh (2015) is quick to emphasize that the idea of ‘Flip’ is invaluable, but the factors to address to enable the success of the Flip outcome to happen must be present. Sabieh’s intended Flip scenario is to support the methodology to promote flipped learning and the space to become a flipped classroom. Thus, the teaching plan, the lesson plan, and the assessment plan are expected to maintain a supportive, yet, dynamic relationship, focusing on the importance of planning the before and during class activities, and on the learning act itself. The literature supports and expects this. Assessing the process of learning and the outcome of learning are keys to measure the success of the Flip. Planning the pre-class learning, the project-based learning endeavors, the in-class discussions, the authentic learning opportunities, and the post class activities include defining the new roles of the teacher and the students. Graney (2015) stresses the importance of formative assessment in Flipped learning. The formative as well as the successful completion of the tasks become the benchmarks to enable the educator to acknowledge the students learning curve. However, Sabieh advocates that some form of traditional summative assessment is also needed to acknowledge that the content material itself was acquired and internalized for long term knowledge application. Students need to acquire, understand and use the content information: Project based learning ensures that the process of learning does indeed allow the students to acquire and use the information step by step to complete the project; Bauer-Ramazani (2015) showed examples of this. Sabieh believes this is not enough: The formative development is important but so is the summative, which also needs to be addressed in the form of an achievement test. It is important that the educator is able to assess that the students’ learning has been reached (Masters, 2015; Pierce, 2013; Coombe et al., 2012).

Sabieh advocates that for the Flip to be initiated effectively, educators themselves need to go through the experience of being in a flipped classroom and experiencing flipped learning endeavors (See Rath & Chung, 2013). A firm believer of approaching learning hands-on, Sabieh, using Bandura’s self-efficacy (1977) and Bloom’s higher order skill building strategies (Shank 2013) to familiarize the educators by taking on a student’s role, is a sure way to get them to start understanding the methodology of how to plan for a flip set up and learning and assessment approach. Changing their approaches or behavior depends on the educators experiencing the blended learning set up, the technology, the value and the experience of the Flip. Likewise, undergoing content material exposure and activities and the technology that will facilitate their skill building as understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating will also help them see the significance of flip learning (Keefe & Walker DeGeorge, 2009; Hopson, Knezek & Simms, 2002). Sabieh believes that the understanding of self-paced learning, responsibility, self-assessment, group collaboration, pre-and post-classwork, as well as active participation in the class environment, are the keys to the mastery of the understanding of what “Flip” requires.

The Flipped Learning Network (2014) defines “Flipped Learning as a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter”. According to the Flipped Learning Network, the four pillars needed for Flip need to be present: flexible environment, learning culture, intentional content and professional educator. Thus, creating the environment needed for Flip is central for the teaching/learning endeavor to happen. The creators – the educators – must believe in the approach and must be comfortable in applying the flip approach. The outcome endeavor must enable the stakeholders to witness successful learning. Bench-markers traditionally in place – through formative or summative assessments -- must be met successfully. Sabieh’s purpose was to create the needed set up for the educators to experience. Sabieh wanted to shed light on the difference in quality of learning and assessing the Flip environment had to offer. The hope of surpassing the boundaries of the role playing exercise is what should be pushing the educators to move their students learning capabilities forward.

Research Questions

Four research questions were addressed:1. Would exposure to a created Flip set up prove to be an effective way to experience the purpose of

Flip?

2. Would the content material and the planned activities enable the researcher to collect sufficient data to show a learning curve?

3. Would the alternative assessments of the formative and summative tasks be value for assessing learning outcomes?

4. Would a traditional summative assessment tool give added value to measure the learning outcome?

Participants

Twelve graduate Education students who were also full-time school teachers underwent the experience of “the flip” in an Advanced Educational Psychology course that taught Learning Theories and Conditions across 45 in-class hours. One participant within the first three hours of the course dropped the semester; thus, the population of eleven was the sample.

Design

Using triangulation, the case study included both quantitative and qualitative research methods that enabled the reporting of both descriptive and observation data.

Procedure and Instruments

The participants were given the course syllabus outlining the learning theories and conditions, the instructional methodology and course requirements. Weekly, they received, online, the content material for the Learning Theory or Condition being covered. The material included You Tube films, internet and print resources. The participants were told what to do with the content material and the formative and summative activities expected of them in the unit. Thus, the instruments they were to use or create were based on the planned tasks and the instructions to follow to complete the tasks and measure the learning:

For each unit of Learning Theory, the participants did the following: Creation of Charts, Projects, Illustrations of Theory in School setting, and Presentations.

1. The Creation of Charts: Use the content material provided for the unit, create a table to identify indicators of each Learning Theory.

2. Projects: Take each theory and use it to create a lesson plan of a topic you are teaching in school. Use the lesson plan to teach your class. Reflect on the learning. Be ready to present the lesson and your reflection in class. These projects at times were individual or pair collaborations where the peers would be expected to give feedback on the lesson plans before they were tried out in their school settings. A reflection was to be written up for each Project.

3. Illustration of Theory in School setting: Provide examples during the weekly sessions, to show how the theory worked with their students.

4. Presentation: Plan activities related to the learning theory and present them in the weekly sessions for group discussion.

For each class session and each activity, participants were to write initial reflections, and then, after discussions, they were to correct or modify their work and write reflections to support the changes.

At the end of the semester, they also created a Film and a Portfolio, and sat for an achievement test. The five minute film they were to create using Microsoft Movie Maker was for the participants to visually show the Learning Theories in Practice. The Portfolio was for them to compile their semester work in the Flip environment and to show reflections of their learning journal; this also included an overall reflection of their learning and the Flip experience.

Moreover, the achievement test was a multiple choice assessment of the content material. The purpose of the traditional summative assessment task was to measure the participants basic content acquisition in relation to the content acquisition acquired through the alternative formative and summative assessments resulting from the tasks listed above.

All tasks were graded.

Results

The results reflected Flip understanding and successful activity completion. The twofold purpose was successfully carried out and the research questions addressed.

Research Question 1: Would exposure to a created Flip set up prove to be an effective way to experience the purpose of Flip? Exposure to the Flip set up proved to be an effective way for the participants the meaning of Flip. Using technology and print resource material as a pre-class means to be exposed to the content proved to be powerful tools as the participants used the same resource opportunities in their lesson planning for the students in their classes. They modeled and planned lessons in line with how they were given their course instructional methodology and resources. See Figure 1 as an example of a participant’s lesson plan showing You Tube films being incorporated.

Figure 1: Shows incorporating of You Tube Film in Lesson Planning

Research Question 2: Would the content material and the planned activities enable the researcher to collect sufficient data to show a learning curve? The content material included exposure to learning theories and conditions: multiple intelligence, information processing, behavioral, cognitive learning, social learning, and motivation theories. Participants carried out five chart activities, seven projects, three peers’ collaborative assignments, six illustration of theory in class activities, initial reflections and reflections, five presentations, one film creation, one film presentation, one portfolio and presentation, and one achievement test. The planned tasks enabled the researcher and the participants to observe their formative and summative learning opportunities mapping out quantitative and qualitative learning curve appreciation. The participants all reflected positively on the learning experience and the course methodology although they all noted that the course was very demanding and time consuming. The participants all noted that they had started to make changes in their daily teaching endeavors and learning activities. See the visuals below in Figure 2 as an example of participants’ learning endeavors.

Figure 2: Examples of Participants’ Learning Endeavors

Research Question 3: Would the alternative assessments of the formative and summative tasks be value for assessing learning outcomes? The participants carried out diverse learning activities; all formative and summative alternative assessment activities were assessed. Table 1 below shows the average score of all the activities for each participant. The participants received a full or close to full score out of 10 points on the Charts, Projects, Illustrations, Presentations, and Films inferring successful application of course content. Thus, the tasks planned did have value for assessing learning outcomes.

Table1: Assessment Scores On Tasks during Semester to Compare Achievement Test Scores and Other Task Scores: Tables, Projects, Illustrations, Presentations, Films and PortfolioParticipant Achievement test

score/10 pointsAverage score for tables, projects, illustrations, presentations, films, portfolio/ 10 points

Participant 1 6.2 9.5Participant 2 7.2 9Participant 3 6 9.5Participant 4 5.8 9.9Participant 5 8.4 8Participant 6 5.8 8.9Participant 7 6.4 8Participant 8 6.4 10Participant 9 5.2 7.8Participant 10 6.6 9Participant 11 5.4 9.1

Research Question 4: Would a traditional summative assessment tool give added value to measure the learning outcome? At the end of the course, the participants sat for a multiple choice test. Table 1 shows the participants’ scores out of 10. The results show that the participants did not successfully master the course content. Thus, the traditional summative test planned to measure basic learning of content did give important added value to the assessing of learning acquisition. The eleven participants showed significant differences in their achievement tests scores when compared to the average scores each received on the alternative assessment tasks. The achievement test results were lower, ranging from 5.2 to 8.4 out of 10 points. This is an important finding; a key point to warn the education community when rushing to join the bandwagon and flipping their class rooms to Flip learning setting using alternative assessment to measure learning success.

Conclusion

Eleven graduate Education students who were also full-time school teachers underwent the experience of “the flip”. Two important conclusions are advanced.

First, the importance of having educators experience hands-on the Flip experience will enable them successfully create effective Flip learning opportunities and Flip classrooms for their students. In line with the literature, Sabieh created the four pillars needed for the Flip and showed how flipping was powerful and effective in that it did facilitate learning, increase critical thinking, create a dynamic learning space, promote responsible individualized learners and team players, and measures application of knowledge (Marshall, Sabieh, Bauer-Ramazani & Graney, 2015; Vaughan, 2015; Flipped Learning Network, 2014). Teacher training is essential.

Second, and more importantly, she showed the need for traditional testing to measure actual knowledge acquisition. The results showed that the participants did not efficaciously internalize the course material. In line with the literature, Sabieh advocates that having learning environments promote critical thinking and self-efficacy are essential today in arming learners with problem solving skills, but there must be certainty that students are acquiring and internalizing basic content material for short term and long term use. Blood (2012) also addresses performance interpretation and time. Being able to apply the content material at any-time is a measure of learning success. In line with the literature, Sabieh showed how the Flip experience will teach responsibility and challenge the learning endeavor through problem -based learning opportunities, but she also identified a basic weakness in the instructional methodology that needs to be addressed to ensure the newly created Flip experience remains powerful. Integrating traditional and alternative assessments into the Flip climate is the solution she advocates. The learners are able to witness their learning journey and map out the success of learning outcomes; however, the educators need to measure the application of the knowledge and the basic content acquisition to assess that the students’ learning has been productively reached (Coombe et al., 2012).

Given the limitations of the study: convenient sample, small in number, course purpose was for training educators in Flip, the results of the study still enable the recommendation of Flipping; flipping for learning or for classroom re-design. The recommendation is for the educators to seek out training or mentoring in the approach. If the educators want to experiment and explore through trial and error, reflecting on the outcomes, Sabieh cautions not to simplify the Flip model and overlook assessment importance. Future research on Flip learning should address assessment effectiveness as true measures of learning outcomes.

In short, experiencing the set-up and learning through blended learning, discussion, technology support, hands-on activities, projects, and group work will indeed give students the know-how, comprehension, and interactivity, and the emotional component to understand functioning in such an environment as well as the diverse opportunity to assess formative land summative earning and self-regulate, but the educator, Sabieh advocates, still needs to carry out at least one summative evaluation at the end of the teaching/learning course to stay true to the profession and support the four pillars of Flip.

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