Abstract:

With the increasing pressure for Higher Education institutions to undergo transformation comes the rise of the flipped or inverted classroom ,a new model investing on flipping the usual class paradigm in the sense that students learn initial common concepts outside class while class time is devoted to more active learning and practice. Current studies report that a flipped classroom has benefits for teachers and students as it can support the implementation of a communicative, student-centered learning environment. With the variety of medium of delivering the content, ranging from assigning textbook readings, to posting videos or sending audios via mobiles, there is a need to assess students’ preferences in that aspect .The following study involved 25 college students in an advanced writing class, whose class was flipped using different modes. In particular, students were given three different modes of input throughout the 15 week semester: Reading material from text book, listening to audio recordings, and watching videos, all of which targeted a particular conceptual body of knowledge relevant to producing argumentative papers. An end of semester survey measured such a preference, and the VARK Questionnaire ( Version 7.2) was administered to explore the relationship between students’ learning preferences ( Visual/ Aural/Read-Write/Kinesthetic) and their preferred mode of flipped class( Textbook material/ audio recordings/ Videos).

Keywords:

Flipped classroom, technology, writing, language teaching, students’ preferences.