Limited Flipped Classroom Pilot Yields Impressive Qualitative, Quantitative Results

Part 2 of a Look at a Pilot of Flipped Classroom Implementation at The College of Westchester

On Sunday I shared some exciting Quantitative Results from a pilot of flipped learning that we tried this year at The College of Westchester. Today we continue this look at our experience, with a focus on the Qualitative feedback offered by our students.

This first of two phases of a flipped teaching and learning pilot consisted of two courses in which selected portions of course content (roughly 30% to 50% of the content) were flipped. Further details are provided in Part 1 of this recap.

Qualitative Assessment Approach

Quantitative and qualitative assessment techniques were designed and incorporated into our pilot study. Our Qualitative assessments are based on a survey of student perceptions and instructor perceptions of the course and the flipped class delivery method.

Five questions were asked on a survey to gauge student’s perception of how the flipped delivery method affected their learning. Response options for each question were as follows: Strongly Agree, Agree, Neither Agree nor Disagree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree. Responses were summarized into 3 groups (by putting “Agree” and “Strongly Agree” together and putting “Disagree” and “Strongly Disagree” together).

It should be noted that these were small groups of students (9 and 11) and that majority of students in each of these course offerings (18 out of 20 total) completed the surveys.

Question No. 1: “I liked this approach to learning”

94% of students selected “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” for this question. That's a pretty overwhelming endorsement of flipped teaching and learning from the student perspective.

Question No. 2: “This approach helped me learn the material better”

This is probably the most important result. 72% of the students agreed that the flipped instruction approach helped them learn the material better!

Question No. 3: “This approach required more work”

A little over half of the students felt that flipped teaching and learning did require more work. Not a surprising result.

• Agree: 55%
• Disagree: 28%
• Neutral: 17%

Question No. 4: “I would want more of the material in the course taught this way”

This was slightly encouraging, as a little over half of the students agreed.

• Agree: 55%
• Disagree: 17%
• Neutral: 28%

Question No. 5: “I would want other courses to use this approach to learning”

Here we see a 50-50 split between the “Agree” and “Disagree”. This is certainly an interesting result considering the overwhelming percentage of students that said they liked it, and how many said they learned more. This may reflect students’ concerns regarding the increased demand for active learning outside of the classroom in the flipped model.

Teacher Perceptions

We also inquired with our teachers, to get a sense of how their experiences was. Among their responses:

Did you find that using flipped class techniques helped your students learn better?

• “It did because it made them pay more attention and be more engaged during class time.”

What did you like the MOST about teaching using flipped class techniques?

• “Students' collaboration and interactions among themselves.”
• “I liked to see the students chatting excitedly about the in-class activities. I loved to see them laugh and to hear them really thoughtfully engaging the material.”

What did you like the LEAST about teaching using flipped class techniques?

• “It is difficult to find academically rigorous pre-classwork that isn't just reading. Much of what is available online is not college level. It is also difficult to get them to actually do the pre-work.”

Is there anything you would plan to do differently if you do this again in future classes?

• “As per the students' suggestions, I will have an introduction of the topic material before the flipped class.”
• “This style demands tremendous pre-planning, so I would do even more of that. I would also re-think the way I would organize my Moodle to make it optimally navigable for the students.”

Will you use Flipped Class techniques in future classes?

• “I definitely will. I think it creates a more interactive environment and it also supplies the multi-modality approach that speaks to different learning styles or even to challenges faced by ESL students.”

Next Steps

Our encouraging Quantitative and Qualitative results have us looking forward to expanding the pilot with a handful of this Fall's day term courses and reassessing perceptions and outcomes.

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Flipped Learning Pilot Radically Reduces DFW Grade Rates in Two Courses
Peer Instruction and Flipped Learning – Perfect Together!
How to Make Sure Your Students Have Access to Flipped Learning Content