FLIPPED LEARNING AND SAKAI’S LESSON BUILDER: A GOOD COMBINATION TO IMPROVE GENERAL SKILLS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Nowadays, university students live in a world of continuous updates where the information has to be managed quickly and efficiently. There are many information that has to be discriminate and handle. This generation has the talent to process the information faster than other generations because they were born within the age of telecommunications. Considering that they normally use some technological abilities in social aspects, professors can use them in learning environments. They are multi-tasking students and should be guided by professors in order to generate the best professionals.

Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach in which the roles of the teaching process are changed. By means of virtual resources and other tools, the learning process is transformed into a dynamic and interactive learning environment where professors only guide students in order to achieve a constructed knowledge. In addition, if we combine this methodology with a content sequencer (Lessons), the combination can be perfect because Lessons allows professors to generate different ways to achieve learning goals. The present study explored the combination of Lesson builder (Sakai) and flipped learning methodology for pedagogical possibilities. The main objective was to work, develop and evaluate general skills in university students with a dynamic and motivating methodology. One of the best values of this study was the necessity to encompass an integral view in the methodology because the experience was applied to different subjects that belonged to different degrees in the Universitat Politècnica of València. To achieve this goal, a multidisciplinary group of professors (GRIPAU) decided to develop an experience during two years in 613 students of different courses and degrees. The experience used Lessons as a template where the professor introduced virtual resources for flipped learning. The main idea was to develop specific and transversal skills through a particular activity. This activity was completely different in each subject, but the working guidelines and the way to asses transversal skills were the same for all. Self-evaluation, development of the activity with flipped learning (use of digital resources) and final assessment by professors were the different sections that were defined in Lessons. Data obtained was analysed by ANOVA methodologies in order to obtain statistically significant outcomes between the level of acquisition of skills and marks.

According to the main outcomes, the use of Lessons and Flipped learning allowed 86.03% of students to achieve a good level of skill development. The methodology favoured an increase of 10.66% students who reached a good acquisition level if we compare outcomes with the data obtained before the application of the methodology (75.3%). The ANOVA revealed that there were statistically significant differences between the students who reached the excellent and good acquisition level and the students who obtained an “in development or non-reached” acquisition level. The students who obtained the best marks showed the best acquisition skill levels. To sum up, with the combination of Lessons and flipped learning more than 30% of students reached the excellent level. In addition, the motivation of students increased when Lessons and flipped learning were used.