Abstract:

Flipped learning is continuing to gain popularity in education. The COVID pandemic has forced all institutions of higher education to switch to remote learning and think about effective online teaching and learning strategies, including the flipped approach. Classroom instruction and homework activities are flipped allowing the instructor increased use of class time for deeper and meaningful discussion and activities. While the flipped approach was first proposed for K-12 settings, its use in higher education has continued to grow in part due to increased access to technology and ease of video-based content creation.

As courses and programs in higher education are increasingly offered fully online, there is pressure to innovate teaching in order to meet student’s learning needs without in-person class meetings. Despite the increase in enrollment in online courses, completion rates are significantly lower than in face-to-face programs. Thus, higher education institutions are continuing to look for innovative teaching approaches and learning strategies, and flipped learning is one such approach being considered.

The concept has expanded beyond topic introduction and is now defined 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” (The Flipped Learning Network, 2014, para. 4). This definition takes away the limitation of time and space, of when and where the instruction is taking place, and focuses on the type of teaching and learning activity.

Flipping a fully online class challenges several assumptions of the traditional flipped classroom. Without synchronous class meetings is it even possible to flip since there is no traditional in-class/out-of-class or before/during/after class. How can the flipped approach be applied to fully online courses? Strategies by independent practitioners appear on blogs however, the field of online learning can greatly benefit from systematic studies on flipped approach in online learning.

We undertook a study with faculty who use the flipped method in their online courses. The sample consisted of faculty from multiple countries and teaching courses in a wide range of content areas such as medicine, technology, education, etc.. We will present the findings from this study, highlighting how various faculty, globally, are using the flipped approaches in their online courses. With the pandemic and switch to remote learning, faculty and institutions have become creative in their online pedagogies. For this study, we interviewed faculty from different countries on how they incorporated the flipped pedagogies. We will present a synthesis of the creative and innovative strategies used in higher education to promote effective online teaching and learning.

Keywords:

Online learning, flipped method, higher education, virtual learning, e-learning, educational innovation, global perspectives.