2. Flipping FL Pedagogy with Just-in-Time Teaching--Dr. D. R. Sarvamangala & Eman Abdulrahman Al-Sharafi

Abstract

Teaching a foreign language (FL) is a demanding task due to the lack of two fundamental requirements for FL learning, ‘exposure to FL’ and ‘opportunities for using it for interaction’. Although the importance of these factors for language learning is known, they can get overlooked because of constraints faced in actual practice. Just-in-Time Teaching is a recent well-structured teaching strategy that can contribute in overcoming some challenges in FL education. This paper presents an account of what this strategy is, how it operates, and why it should be considered in FL education.

Key words: Just-in-Time Teaching strategy, Flipped Classrooms, FL education

Introduction

Just-in-Time Teaching (referred to as 'JiTT' for short) is a well-structured teaching strategy that results in flipping classrooms. It was firmly established in 1998 (Garvin et al, 2003) in the United States by three teachers of physics, Gregor Novak, Evelyn Patterson, and Andrew Gavrin (Novak & Paterson, 2010). JiTT is a type of blended learning that directly and deeply links pre-class preparatory web-based assignments to in-class activities (Novak & Paterson, 2010). The objective of this strategy is "to move the information transfer outside of the classroom, not to have students understand all the content before coming to class" (Lasry, Dugdale & Charles, 2014: 34). As a flipped classroom strategy, JiTT assigns to teachers higher order roles. As Lasry et al. (2014) put it, it does make sense to use the teacher who is the most expensive resource in the pedagogical process as a book when a book is already there! Thus, the teacher’s job is no longer to transfer information, but to "help students connect the information they gathered before class into meaningful chunks. Teachers help students overcome their conceptual difficulties and help students recognize when and how to apply the newly constructed knowledge" (Lasry et al., 2014: 34). JiTT also alters students' roles and

make them more responsible for their individual learning. It is based on "constructivist theory: all students enter the classroom with background knowledge and all students use this knowledge to construct more knowledge" (Abreu & Knouse, 2014: 53). One reason that sets JiTT apart from other pedagogical innovations is the intentional use of student-generated responses to out of class assignments to inform in-class activities (Novak & Patterson, 2010). Actually, it is this point in particular that JiTT has got its name from: it is a flipped classroom strategy in which the teacher gets students' responses to pre-class assignments 'just in time' for him/her to process those responses for use in the classroom (Novak & Patterson, 2010). JiTT makes it imperative for students to submit their responses to out-of-class activities online within a deadline before class. This makes students come prepared for class with information fresh in their minds since out of class activities are due just a few hours before class (12 hours or less). This facilitates students' engagement in the in-class activities and improves their academic abilities. Further, students' responses (feedback) reveal the areas of misconceptions in their understanding, helping the teacher to address those areas of misconception and to make the most use of the class time to engage students in higher order learning activities. The underlying learning objectives aimed to be achieved by assigning JiTT exercises to students before class are to prepare them for discussion of complex, possibly controversial topics, to get them beyond memorization, to make them reconstruct ideas and concepts, to develop a need to know in them and to encourage them to reflect on their own learning (Novak & Patterson, 2010).

How JiTT works

JiTT is a strategy that leads to flipping classrooms. Flipped classrooms go through two main sessions, the first takes place out of class and the second in class (Ramani, 2015); the uniqueness of JiTT is in creating what is called the 'feedback loop' between the two. This 'feedback loop' is created through deep linkage between the out of class assignments with the in-class activities, and the out of class exercises (also simply referred to as 'JiTTs') play an essential role in facilitating this linkage. How the teaching process goes when adopting JiTT varies from one lesson to another, and from one teaching session to another, but generally, teaching goes through two sessions: the out-of-class session followed by the in-class session. Besides the other purposes of the out-of-class session (e.g., transmitting information, creating interest in the subject … etc), it serves two very important purposes:1) to prepare students for class, and 2) to assess their initial learning to enable the teacher to plan the in class activities accordingly. The in-class session builds on students' responses to 'JiTTs', which reveal deficiencies in their initial learning. This enables teachers to know what needs to be addressed in class and to plan for getting students to accomplish deeper levels of learning. The JiTT process goes as follows:

A. The out-of-class session:

· Setting curricular objectives

· Constructing and / or locating resources of information to be posted to students

· Developing JiTT questions 'JiTTs' that require students to reconstruct the information in the posted material on their own drawing on different resources, with the last question asking students to write which part of the online assignment was the most confusing or most interesting to them.

· Posting JiTTs to students online (preferably on a learning management system such as Edmodo or Padlet) and setting a deadline for students to submit their responses just in time for teachers to process them.

· Analyzing students' responses, finding misconceptions in them, selecting an excerpt of students' responses to be displayed in class and planning in-class activities based on analysis of the findings.

B. The in-class session:

· Displaying an excerpt of students' responses at the beginning of class, and discussing them to address misconceptions and difficulties.

· Assigning in-class activities to engage students more in the topic, and to give them the opportunity to achieve deeper levels of learning.

Points to stress about JiTT

If JiTT is to be adopted in FL education, it is important to stress some points. These are the following.

· JiTT is not a method for reducing workload for teachers (Garvin et al, 2003), but to help them to engage their students in learning.

· Implementation of JiTT "must be accompanied by effective communication with students about its purpose, process, and impact to ensure that its learning potential is fully realized" (Camp, Middendorf & Sullivan, 2010: 37)"

· “The key to achieving success with JiTT lies in the development of effective JiTT questions” (Novak & Peterson, 2010: 7). "The best JiTT exercises include short, thought-provoking questions that, when fully discussed, often have complex answers" (Novak & Peterson, 2010: 6).

· JiTT exercises must not require learners' memorization or ability to just retell what is found in material. Rather, JiTTs should require learners to draw on what is available to them to construct their own responses.

· Out-of-class assignment should be due in a time short enough for the subject to be fresh in learners' minds, yet long enough for the teacher to review learners' responses.

· JiTT is more structured towards how teachers can make, analyze and use out-of-class exercises to engage students and to plan in-class activities accordingly, but it does not specify how in class time should be spent, yet it stresses that it should be interactive.

· JiTT has been found to work well when accompanied with other teaching strategies that focus on classroom activities such as 'Peer-Instruction' that provides opportunities for students to discuss concepts in class, which allows them to learn from each other (Watkins & Mazur, 2010).

· JiTT exercises are formative in nature, yet they should be given some marks to make learners take them seriously. And they should be marked for effort and completeness rather than for accuracy since learners do them before lessons are introduced in class.

· JiTT has summative assessment as well after lessons are introduced in class.

Why to consider using JiTT in FL education

JiTT has been used, in disciplines ranging from physics to the humanities and instructors "have found JiTT to be effective in promoting student learning" (Simkins & Maier, 2010: xiv). However, all the disciplines in which JiTT has been used are content subjects, in which focus is on the subject matter or the concepts and knowledge that learners need to learn. FL education is a unique field, and much of FL education that is going on in the world is not content-based. So, one might ask whether JiTT is as well suitable for FL education especially when it is not content-based.

The answer to this question is not straightforward in the absence of empirical evidence especially because FL education is not all the same, and because it is taught at different levels. Seeing that the developers of the strategy, who used it in teaching physics and math, have stressed that out-of-class exercises should be conceptual questions that require written answers, "not mathematical calculations" (Garvin, 2006: 11), similarly, when FL education is heavily structural and structures are taught deductively, JiTT seems not to be of much use. In addition, since JiTT requires learners to do assignments on their own out of class, it is also probable that it is not suitable for use with learners who are at the very low levels of language ability. When, on the other hand, FL education is not heavily structural or not taught at very low levels, JiTT, intuitively speaking, seems to be advantageous for FL education at least for the following four reasons.

First, it is acknowledged in FL education that exposure to the FL is a key factor in learning it, and the more exposure learners get, the more likely their levels of FL improve, especially when they are exposed to input that is 'comprehensible' (Krashen, 1981) to them. However, it is often a challenge for teachers to provide their students with adequate exposure to the FL when it is taught outside its native country. JiTT can help in this regard because it does not wait for the coming of the class time to start exposing learners to FL. JiTT assigns material for learners to read or listen to and to answer related questions prior to class. So, if JiTT is to be adopted in FL teaching, it gives the learners a better opportunity to get exposure to FL in and out of the classroom. Assigning out-of-class readings and listening is not in itself a new thing for FL teachers; however, no other strategy has created such linkage between out-of-class and in-class activities as JiTT does.

Second, JiTT has been tailored in such a way so as to facilitate learners' engagement in the learning process. This has been achieved through assigning not only materials but also exercises which are due a short time before class, and JiTT stresses that the exercises are valued in some way even if they are formative in nature to make learners take them seriously. Thus, learners are expected to come prepared for class with information fresh in their minds. In addition, in-class session usually begins with displaying excerpts of learners' responses, which makes them feel that they are the owners of what is being taught to them. This leads to more cognitive and emotional engagement in learning.

Third, for FL learning to take place, it is important to keep the 'affective filters' (Krashen, 1981) of learners low. Anxiety and lack of confidence act as barriers for 'intaking' the language input. JiTT is helpful in this regard since it presents material for learners to read or listen to and to do related exercises at their ease out of class. Thus, learners have the opportunity to look up unfamiliar words and think about the assignment given to them in good time, which helps keep their 'affective filters' low (Cupita & Andrea, 2016; Edwards et al., 2006).

Fourth, since JiTT provides learners the opportunity to explore the material, do the necessary translation, and look for answers to the JiTT exercises from plenty of resources in good time before they come to class, JiTT prepares learners to be smoothly engaged in interactive activities in the in-class session, as the in-class activities in JiTT are inherently learner-centered (Garvin, 2006). This has an important implication for FL education, in which the opportunities for 'interaction' using FL is one of the key factors in learning it.

Finally, the scarce published studies on the use of JiTT in FL education, suggested that JiTT was effective in developing learners' reading and writing abilities (Chantoem and Saowalak, 2016). Also learners had positive attitudes towards the strategy and perceived it as a means to engage them in the designed activities (Cupita & Andrea, 2016), and the strategy was found to help lower the 'affective filter' of learners (Cupita & Andrea, 2016; Edwards et al., 2006).

References

• Abreu, L. & Knouse, S. (2014). Just-in-Time Teaching: A Tool for Enhancing Student Engagement in Advanced Foreign Language Learning. The Journal of Effective Teaching, 14(2), 49 – 68.
• Camp, M., Middendorf, J. & Sullivan, C. (2010). Using Just-in-Time Teaching to Motivate Student Learning. In S. Simkins & M. H. Maier (Eds.), Just-in-time teaching: Across the disciplines, across the academy (pp. 3-24). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
• Chantoem, R. & Saowalak, R. (2016). Just-In-Time Teaching Techniques through Web Technologies for Vocational Students’ Reading and Writing Abilities. English Language Teaching, 9 (1), 65 – 76.
• Edwards, J., Mehring, J., & Murphey, T. (2006). Exploring JiTT: Just-in-time teaching. The Language Teacher, 30(2), 9 – 14.
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• Krashen, S. D. (1981). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon.
• Lasry, N., Dugdale, M. and Charles, E. (2014). Just in Time to Flip Your Classroom: The Physics Teacher. Retrieved from: DOI: 10.1119/1.4849151
• Novak, G. M., & Patterson, E. (2010). An introduction to just-in-time teaching. In S. Simkins & M. H. Maier (Eds.), Just-in-time teaching: Across the disciplines, across the academy (pp. 3 – 24). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
• Ramani, P. N. (2015). Flipped Classrooms. Journal of Technology for ELT, 5(2).
• Simkins, S., & Maier, M. H. (2010). Editors’ preface: Just-in-time teaching across the disciplines
• S. Simkins & M. H. Maier (Eds.), Just-in-time teaching: Across the disciplines, across the academy (pp. xiii-xix). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing. Watkins, J., & Mazur, E. (2010).
• Just-in-Time Teaching and Peer Instruction. In S. Simkins & M. H. Maier (Eds.), Just-in-time teaching: Across the disciplines, across the academy (pp. 39 – 62). Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.