Abstract:

In this paper, the author outlines the lessons learned from a case study in class flipping conducted at the IES Abroad center in Milan. She describes the changes the course underwent and how the innovative use of online platforms, specific flipping techniques, and a new classroom design helped improve the course and engage students by adapting a learning style they are accustomed with to the local context. The paper will focus on how flipping the classroom frees up more time for hands-on activities and project development. Time is a particularly important issue for abroad studies, as students are often busy traveling when not in the classroom. They have a hard time finding ways to work together outside the classroom.

The course “Social Innovation – strategies for social and environmental sustainability” has been conducted at IES Abroad Milan since 2012. Sustainability intersects topics such as local culture, national heritage, and contemporary political movements. This makes it a useful topic to explore abroad, since it offers students a rare opportunity to explore and identify the issues shaping the new community in which they are living. At the same time, these topics are also what make the subject so challenging – as it requires students to immerse themselves in an unknown framework. How is it possible to navigate this intercultural dilemma so that students come to both deeply understand social innovation and know how to apply it in different contexts?

Initially, the Social Innovation course was built around a combination of theoretical lessons, field studies, and a group project. The course went well and received strong student evaluations, but student’s projects remained underdeveloped, largely due to lack of time to complete them. Acknowledging the importance of hands-on exercises and instructor feedback in a course of this kind led the instructor to consider class flipping as a means for freeing up class time for project work without eliminating essential theoretical instruction.

Flipping the class is not only about recording videos for students to view outside of class but also about preparing the class for group work, peer reviews and project development; this is done by integrating different online tools and rethinking of classroom activities. In this paper, I will explore the tools, classroom design, and course evaluations methods used for the pilot flipped class in Fall 2016. The tools are divided into online and offline tools that enable students to better prepare for class activities and the instructor to better evaluate their preparation and adapt exercises to their pace. Here I will explore the use of quizzes, forums, online discussion and more. My discussion of classroom design will shed light on how even small changes in the classroom structure can have a large impact on student learning. Finally, I will explore the evaluation formats and focus groups created to measure the impact of flipping this course.

I will conclude with a discussion of the results, focusing on project quality, student feedback, instructor observations, and test results. I end with a few considerations of how to improve future iterations of the class and how to spread class-flipping techniques both within the local center and in other study abroad contexts.

Keywords:

Social innovation, flipped classroom, study abroad.