Abstract:

The flipped classroom methodology is relatively new, since this designation was firstly used in 1998, but it was popularized by two teachers from a US institute in 2007. The flipped classroom is a pedagogical model that raises the need to transfer part of the teaching and learning process outside the classroom in order to use class time for the development of more complex cognitive processes that enhance a better and meaningful learning.
During the academic year 2016/17, a flipped-classroom experience has been carried out in the subject of Sustainable Production of the Bachelor Degree in Technology of the Agri-Food Industries at the Technical University of Madrid, This obligatory subject is in the third course of the Degree and it has 4 ECTS.
The aim of the experience was to implicate students in their own learning and to increase their activity in class and in out-of-class work. It was aimed also to improve academic performance and learning of specific and core competences.
The experience was carried out in the aforementioned subject of 4 ECTS about sustainability aspects of food production and consumption. 17 students signed up. Along the grade, there were proposed some activities following this schedule: activities before the lesson, activities in the classroom and after the lesson. Before the lesson, students had to read some documents about the subject-matter and they had to answer some questions about them and outline the core concepts. These activities aimed to achieve knowledge and comprehension levels of Bloom´s taxonomy on cognitive domain of learning. In the classroom the subject-matter was developed by the teacher and students asked about doubts, did calculation problems and answered tests with Kahoot! tool. Afterwards the class hours, students did calculation problems as out-of-class work. These classroom activities and homework ones aimed to work application and analysis levels of learning. An ethical dilemma was proposed about an environmental issue, so sustainability and ethical commitment core competences were evaluated.
These tasks were given to the teacher and then they were evaluated. During the grade, the time spent by students in the different activities was consigned. At the end of the grade a survey was made among the students to assess the experience followed. The academic results were compared with the previous courses in which a traditional methodology was followed.
The results indicate that this methodology improved the academic performance, more students passed the exams and higher marks were achieved, so it was improved the degree of learning of the specific and also core competences (sustainability and ethical commitment). The students remarked the methodology as useful and formative, although the workload was great. However, the time dedicated to the proposed activities did not exceed the hourly load for ECTS credit assigned to out-of-class activities. However, it meant a greater work load for the teachers, both in the preparation of the materials and in the evaluation of the activities.
The satisfactory results of this experience allow us to continue the application of this methodology in the future, in the same subject and also in other ones that are taught by the professors of our Educational Group.

Keywords:

Flipped-classroom, core competences.