Abstract:

As educators we are living through an unprecedented period. We are facing accelerated technological change, unparalleled pressures and students with sometimes diametrically opposed mindsets, expectations and needs. Teaching complex subjects such as computer programming to modern strategic learners has become increasingly difficult. As we continue to experience poor attendance, high attrition rates and falling engagement by students, is it time to ask if the traditional approach of passive learning though lectures is the most effective way to teach?

This paper describes an experiment to improve student engagement, attainment and the learning environment through the application of pedagogical principles underpinning flipped learning and massive open online courses (MOOC). A second-year university course on object-orientated programming (OOP) with 165 students was selected for the experiment. Traditional lectures were replaced by instructional video tutorials, additional laboratory classes and online support through a Discord chat server. Before coming to laboratory sessions, students were directed to undertake a range of pre-class activities. These included, interacting with the instructional videos and undertaking directed reading, programming exercises and quizzes. These pre-class activities focused on helping students to acquire the fundamental knowledge and technical competencies required to tackle the more complex problems that were presented during the laboratory classes. Laboratory sessions were redesigned to promote active learning through problem and enquiry-based learning, collaborative programming, peer review and discussion. Previous research has shown that these activities are an effective way of assisting students in developing the higher order skills of creativity, problem solving and communication.

Initial results and student outcomes are extremely encouraging. The pass rate for the cohort of 165 was 86% with 39% of students achieving a grade over 70%. Student engagement within the course was extremely high. The total number of hours spent online by students exceed 5,000 hours with students spending on average 34 hours reviewing course content. Student feedback on the course is also very encouraging with 81.32% of students agreeing or strongly agreeing that course delivery was of a high quality. Sentiment analysis of student feedback on course delivery classified only 12.68% of comments as negative. However, these comments did provide insights into areas of improvement and issues with flipped learning, providing the basis for the many lessons learned during the delivery of this course.

Keywords:

Flipped learning, programming, technology, skills development, active learning, blended learning.