July 2015

When: Wed. July 22, 2015 from 11:00AM – 12:00PM (EST).

Article: Jensen JL, Kummer TA, Godoy DdM. 2015. Improvements from a flipped classroom may simply be the fruits of active learning. CBE-Life Sci Educ. 14: 1-12. doi: 10.1187/cbe.14-08-0121.

http://www.lifescied.org/content/14/1/ar5.full.pdf+html?with-ds=yes

How: Journal Club meets via Skype. In order to setup for this please send Neil your Skype handle. You may be sent a skype request, which you will have to accept.

Guiding questions:

Is it possible to flip the classroom without using active learning as a teaching strategy?
Is it possible to do active learning without application of the content? In the 5E learning cycle used by the authors, are the activities used during Engage, Explore, and Explain completely devoid of Elaboration? This is critical because the authors are claiming that Engage, Explore, and Explain are relegated to Content Attainment whereas Elaborate and Evaluate are relegated to Content Application. Is there no overlap of content attainment and application among the 5Es as implemented in this study? See the supplementary materials for examples used in the study.
There is a really interesting comment/observation near the end of the paper (p 10) that students preferred the in-class activities to the at home online activities regardless of whether it was during the content attainment phase or during the content application phase. Peer interaction and instructor intervention was perceived as being most beneficial to students' learning. What does this say about the implementation of MOOCs as a learning alternative in higher education?
One of the assumptions of the authors is that flipping the classroom requires technology (laptop, desktop, tablet, internet connection) and thus is a very real cost impediment to both students and institutions. Is this a valid assumption? Can flipping not occur simply by assigning pages in a textbook for content attainment? Does implementation of the 5E learning cycle rely on technology?

Summary notes:

Is it possible to flip the classroom without using active learning as a teaching strategy? A converse question might be can you have a traditional classroom and use active learning? This is their control in which the content attainment phase is done in-class with active learning and the application phase is completed at home – but they argue is also active learning.

The question that developed out of our discussion is why would you flip the classroom if you weren't going to implement active learning? The whole point of flipping the classroom is to create space/time inside the classroom for active learning. If you aren't using active learning in the classroom how is content application occuring in the 2^nd phase of flipped learning? Students watch the instructor model how the content is applied? Flipping the classroom take time and effort. Why expend the effort if not for implementation of active learning strategies?

2. Is it possible to do active learning without application of the content? In the 5E learning cycle used by the authors, are the activities used during Engage, Explore, and Explain completely devoid of Elaboration? This is critical because the authors are claiming that Engage, Explore, and Explain are relegated to Content Attainment whereas Elaborate and Evaluate are relegated to Content Application. Is there no overlap of content attainment and application among the 5Es as implemented in this study? See the supplementary materials for examples used in the study.

This was fuzzy for a number of us. But we were able to clarify that the content attainment phase in this study (engage, explore, explain) was trying to be separate and different from the content application phase (elaborate and evaluate). But we had trouble with distinguishing between explaining and elaborating of the 5E learning cycle. We came to the conclusion that there is a subtle difference in that the explain portion deals only with the immediate content whereas the elaborate portion has students use the content in a different or new situation that wasn't available or of which students were not aware during the content attainment phase. I think what is confusing is that the entire 5E learning cycle is active learning and many of us (i.e. me) associate the in-class portion of the flipped classroom as being active learning whereas in this paper active learning was used in all stages of students' learning.

3. There is a really interesting comment/observation near the end of the paper (p 10) that students preferred the in-class activities to the at home online activities regardless of whether it was during the content attainment phase or during the content application phase. Peer interaction and instructor intervention was perceived as being most beneficial to students' learning. What does this say about the implementation of MOOCs as a learning alternative in higher education? [they allude to this calling for a follow-up study comparing flipped and/or non-flipped using 5E learning cycle with a 5E-learning cycle course that is strictly online]

Consideration of this question developed into a discussion of what is active learning? Does active learning require a social face-to-face component that happens in-class? or can active learning involve students working on their own or online (synchronous or asynchronous) with other students and mentors? Is there a difference between students being engaged with the material vs actively learning? Students may be engaged while reading a text through the use of a reading guide or question prompts. Is that active learning? Students maybe engaged with an online learning activity (staged question or interactive video). Is that active learning? Does active learning need to be in the classroom and involve a social setting? This paper suggests that active learning can happen regardless of whether it happens inside or outside the classroom or in the presence or absence of a social interaction.

One of our journal club participants completed a MOOC last year and reported that it wasn't that enjoyable because of the lack of social interaction with peers and mentors/guides. There was some online interaction with TAs (mentors) but it was limited and not of the same quality as she has experienced in person.

Someone else suggested that there will always be demand of MOOCs/online learning because of financial incentives for depts to offer them and the perception among students that they are easier - less work for equivalent grade. Our one journal club participant who had completed a MOOC suggested that her experience suggests that MOOCs are not necessarily easier.

A recent post on LinkedIn discusses some of these issues in the context of how to make online courses student-centered. There seems to be some overlap between learner-centered practices and active learning.

4. One of the assumptions of the authors is that flipping the classroom requires technology (laptop, desktop, tablet, internet connection) and thus is a very real cost impediment to both students and institutions. Is this a valid assumption? Can flipping not occur simply by assigning pages in a textbook for content attainment? Does implementation of the 5E learning cycle rely on technology?

We came to a consensus that although many have defined the flipped classroom as being technology-dependent for the out of class work/preparation for class work, we thought that flipping does not need to be reliant on technology. Flipping the classroom does not have to use podcasts of online videos. Flipping can be effectively achieved by assigning pages to read in a textbook - just like in the good old days :) Flipping the classroom can be construed as what was old is new again. However, we did acknowledge that what may make flipping a powerful teaching strategy today is the emphasis on holding students accountable for the pre-class preparation through some sort of assessment. Team-based learning does this in class with two-stage testing (individual followed by team tests) but can also be effectively done through online pre-quizzes or requiring students to complete some task (e.g. short type-written summary, response, blog post to the reading) prior to coming to class and applying the material or engaging in the content in-class.