Economics Learning in Higher Education in the 21st Century: A Flipped Classroom Approach
(this article has been published in 글로벌 문화와 디지털인문경영 (2018) 한국학술정보. ISBN: 9788926882429)
Yu-Hsuan Lin, ELP (Economics), Catholic University of Korea
[Abstract]
This article proposed a teaching approach for economics education. It illustrates the current challenges of the higher education and the challenges in economics education in particular. To cope with the challenge, a flipped classroom approach is proposed to build a personalised and diverse learning plan. Finally, several practical tips are proposed based on the author’s teaching experience.
[中文摘要]
This article proposed a teaching approach for economics education. It illustrates the current challenges of the higher education and the challenges in economics education in particular. To cope with the challenge, a flipped classroom approach is proposed to build a personalised and diverse learning plan. Finally, several practical tips are proposed based on the author’s teaching experience.
[中文摘要]
這篇文章提出一種對於經濟學教育的教學方法。首先，本文介紹了目前高等教育的各種困境以及挑戰，特別是在大學經濟學教學部分。針對個人化以及多元化需求，本文提出一種翻轉教學方法。該方法將一學期的課程分為數個主題單元，每個單元約一至三周。美個主題有三個階段：課前學習階段，課堂學習階段，以及課後學習階段。課前學習事先給予學生網路影片介紹該單元所應學的基本概念，以及補充閱讀。學生在家觀看影片以及閱讀之後，透過線上測驗進行自我學習檢驗。如此課前學習，學生可理解基本概念並對有興趣的議題做更進一步的探索以及思考。在課堂學習的階段，首先針對線上測驗的內容討論，老師針對多數學生的弱點進行加強教育，並可對有興趣的主題進行更進一步的討論。在理解的階段之後，學生會被給予課堂練習題進行練習，以解題的方式讓學生進一步的理解該單元內容。在課堂學習的最後階段是應用：學生被要求寫出一個題組。題組內要有三成分：背景內容，問題，以及解答。背景內容介紹環境設定和所須知的基本假設；並提出幾個問題，每個問題須針對本單元內所學習得的知識；最後是提出問題的解答。課後學習的部分，學生須彼此學習討論，期末考的內容會從學生設計的題組當中選出。如此，可提升學生的討論意願以及選出學生有興趣的內容加強。本文最後並提出數個實際教學使用上的經驗分享。
With such motivation, according to the statistics provided by the Ministry of Education in Korea[3], the number of school for undergraduate courses had expanded from 109 in 1980 to the 222 in 2010, peaked in 2005 (224). In 1980, there were 448,515 students doing undergraduate courses. In 2010, this student number had reached 2,555,016, which is 5 times larger than that in 3 decades ago. As other developed countries, participation in the Korean higher education has continued to increase towards universal. A web publication, Our World In Data, projected the share of the population aged 15+ educated to degree level in Korea. The number of the share has been grown gradually from 16.6% in 1995 to 30.5% in 2015[4]. Such rapid evolution in higher education influences not only the human capital from a macro perspective, but also the course instruction from a micro perspective.
In order to cope with the challenges in higher education, a worldwide reform campaign has been discussed and practised. For example, in 2013, Stanford University proposed a project of Standford 2025. The project was built on four principles: the open loop university, paced education, the axis flip, and purpose learning. A summary of each principles are:
(a). the open loop university: this principle embraces lifelong learning by taking the college experience as a series of “loops” over the course of a lifetime. Students can return to the University for a mid-career refresh. Learning is not a time in our life, it’s a lifetime thing.
(b). paced education: students have more freedom about taking courses. Their study progress would be through personalised learning phases of varying lengths. They could choose to learn deeply or learn widely, along with better understanding of one's own learning styles and strengths.
(c). the axis flip: the curriculum is organised around skill competencies that could be used in many contexts over the course of a lifetime, rather than around traditional academic disciplines. Skill development is the foundation of learning, rather than knowledge with a particular discipline.
(d). purpose learning: students should declare their learning purposes. They learn with short term goals and long term goals. The goals could motivate them and give them on their career track. In addition, the goals would be to accelerate the University’s transformative contributions to the world by grounding the undergraduate experience in personal, deeply felt meaning.
From the project of Stanford 2025, we can see the future education is personalised, and continues learning for the dynamic and diverse career plan. The traditional education with single academic scope is not enough for the future challenges.
The Post-Crash Economics Society (PCES), a student society at The University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, have produced a compelling analysis of the failings in economics education and set out a road map for reform. They urge that the content of the economics syllabus and teaching methods could and should be seriously rethought. The PCES believes that the current economic education lacks of the training to understand the financial crisis, the worries about climate change, wealth inequality and unemployment. If economics education is not fit for the purposes, it will not produce the skilled economists the society needs. The consequence is failures in economics, such as the Financial Crisis, will inevitably be repeated.
The PCES claims that current economics education is monopolised by a single school of thought commonly referred to as neoclassical economics. This lack of competing thought stifles innovation, damages creativity and suppresses the constructive criticisms that are so vital for economic understanding and advancement. There is also a distinct lack of real-world application of economic ideas, with the focus being on abstract modelling that often seems devoid from reality. Finally, the study of ethics, politics and history are almost completely absent from the syllabus.
Before proceeding to a solution, this article would like to summarise and indicate the challenges of learning in higher education in the 21st century: dynamic world and diverse learning purpose. The world is changing dramatically. The traditional education system is not enough to illustrate and provide sufficient solution for incoming challenges. The career path is no longer as simple as before. Many jobs are created by a new technology and many jobs vanish due to the new invention. Thus, the future education should be personalised learning and distance learning.
(a) Personalised learning
The academic community has taken more attention on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs when the traditional disciplines are unable or unwilling to address an important problem. Practice of interdisciplinary research and teaching are getting popular. Since 1998, a growth in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded at U.S. universities classified as multi- or interdisciplinary studies.
With the movement in academia, compared to two decades ago, the number of students taking a double-major programme has dramatically increased. In order to survive in the severe competition in the job market, students are desperately seeking to build a career path with global competitiveness and multiple skills.
Therefore, the 21st-century education shall provide a personalised learning programme. Universities used to be the places where students specialised their skills and abilities; nowadays they have turned to encourage their students to expand their interests. Students could customise their programmes for their personal career path. On the other hand, the course instructors shall provide a student-oriented learning strategy for their diverse needs.
(b) Distance learning
The course was designed with several topics. Each topic is divided into three stages: pre-class self-learning, in-class group discussion, and post-class learning.
In the pre-class self-learning stage, students were expected to spend most of their effort. The expected studying time is 3 hours. An reading material or on-line videos were provided for their individual learning at home. The article length was 4-10 pages. Regarding on-line videos, a video illustrate one economic concept. Each video was up to 5 minutes and the total watching time was about 30 minutes for the whole topic[9]. After reading or watching the given materials, based on what they learnt, they should do an on-line quiz which contains 10 multiple questions and open questions. The purpose of multiple questions is checking their understanding immediately, and the purpose of open questions is letting students thinking.
Turning now to the in-class stage, they were assigned to a group of four and shared their experience about their individual homework in the first 15 minutes. After that, I would summarise their on-line answers. A classroom discussion starts from here. Based on their weakness in quiz, I explain with the lecture slides in a more efficient way.
Following that, they were given a list of problem sets for the group work. They were given 20-30 minutes for the group discussion and got invited to solve the problems on the stage. The purposes of this stage were self-evaluating understanding and learnt from each other. The instructor would only wade in when they did not know how to do it. At the final part of in-class activities, students were asked to build a problem set from what they learnt. The purpose is building their application skills. A problem set includes the background information, questions and answers. Students would show their understanding to apply to their own interested concepts.
In the post-class stage, they were encouraged to see other peer’s problem set. 70~80% of the final exam questions were selected from the students’ assignments. They could learn from the peer discussion and works.
3.2 Practise and Challenges in an Interdisciplinary Course
My first flipped classroom experience mixed both success and failures. Some of the students were motivated and found the course interesting. From the mid-semester student satisfaction survey conducted in 2015, students felt the great enthusiasm from the instructor. They claimed that their English levels have improved by watching the pre-class materials and participating in the in-class discussion. Some of them studied harder due to the pre-class activities which offered them more flexibility to preview and study in advance. A questionnaire conducted in week 13 has suggested several positive words students thought of this course: positive, interesting, cooperative, satisfied, and enjoyment.
However, a number of serious drawbacks were raised. Some students felt uneasy with the flipped learning because it was different from the traditional learning strategy. There were couple requests to have an additional summary of the pre-class and in-class activities. The MS3S suggested that they found the materials covered in class unhelpful. Particularly, some of them were unfamiliar with mathematics. They even felt frustrated by solving basic algebra. Several negative words from the questionnaire include anxiety, shame, isolated, bored, frustration.
These negative feelings mainly were due to inefficient and unhelpful in-class discussion. Several students commented that there was no discussion and they felt isolated and bored. To resolve this challenge, Palmer (2017), provided several feasible suggestions. He raised several paradoxes in teaching and learning. Paradoxes include, ‘the space should invite the voice of the individual and the voice of the group’, ‘the space should support solitude and surround it with the resources of community’ and ‘the space should welcome both silence and speech’, are relevant to this challenge. The instructor should embrace these paradoxes and design a clear and coordinative task for the group discussion. These would include the group formation (self-grouping might be helpful), feasible questions, rewards for tasks, and so forth. In my experience, I tried to increase the diversity of each group (by gender, year of study, and nationality). However, the gap between students was larger than I expected. Eventually, students felt isolated in the group because they did not feel comfortable in the discussion.
I have to admit that flipped learning is not a panacea to resolve for all difficulties in learning. Having said that, it offers an alternative way by changing the pedagogical design for autonomic studying before the class, and sharing knowledge with others.
4. Tips for Flipped Learning
(a) The pre-class reading materials and videos shall be prepared comprehensively for varying levels. The purposes of pre-class activities are delivering fundamental knowledge and motivating students. The videos shall introduce the basic concepts. A further explanation and example could be left in the in-class exercise. Especially, an interdisciplinary course would have students from different majors. Some fundamental skills, such as mathematics, might be their weakness. This challenge requires extra practise and assistance from the instructor. Fortunately, the on-line courses, such as Khan Academy on Youtube[10], could be good teaching assistance for students with special needs. For advanced students, further reading materials would help them to learn deeper and achieve their goals.
(b) The pre-class exercise, on-line quiz, should be clear and relevant to the materials. The purpose of quiz is checking their understanding and making students think. The multiple choice test shall ask basic level questions and the open questions trigger their interests in learning. Ambiguous, implicit and difficult questions might confuse and discourage them.
(c) A summary of the pre-class materials is helpful to some students in the class, before proceeding to the in-class activities. Particularly, it is suggested by some students who were more familiar to the traditional lecturing way. They need more explicit guideline when they were overwhelmed by massive information.
(d) The in-class discussion requires good team coordination. Considering some of them might be used to the spoon-feeding education, how to encourage the effective discussion would be very important for motivating their learning. The purposes of in-class exercise are examining students understanding and develop their problem-solving skills. At the same time, one exercise is provided. Students may see the exercise in different ways: some feel easy, some feel difficult. After solving the problem, students are encouraged to help other students in needs. Strong students could learn by teaching, while weak students could be assisted by the peers.
(e) Another in-class exercise is building students’ own problem sets. The purpose of this exercise is doing an application. This requires students have not only problem-solving skills but also advanced application skills. In each problem set, students should provide sufficient background information about the problem they would like to solve. They would ask several questions, each question is for one relevant concept about this topic. Also, they provide answers to the questions. The suggested length is one A4 page. So that students would not feel overloaded.
(f) After doing the exercise, a reflection sheet is suggested to reflect their learning. Students could write down their feeling about the topic and questions they did not solve. This could resolve their worries, and the instructor could collect their feedback to improve the teaching.
To conclude, though teaching materials and learning strategies improve with technology development and learning environment, the instructor would face different situation and challenges in the 21st century. The intrinsic motivation of teachers has been unchanged, and will be. Finally, this article would like to end with a quote from Nikos Kazantzakis about teachers: “True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own”.
[10] https://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy
1. Challenges of the Higher Education in the 21st Century
“After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship and settled Civil Government, one of the next things we longed for and looked for was to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity.” by The founders of Harvard recorded their reasons for establishing this center of learning in 1643.
‘The world is going to University!’ is an article title of the Economists in 2015[1]. The global share of the student-age population at university has gone up from 14% to 32% from 1992 to 2012. University enrolment is growing faster even than demand for most consumer goods, include car, the crucial indicated good. Korea is in a leading position of this movement. The proportion of Korean high-school graduates going on to higher education rose from 40% in the early 1990s to almost 84% in 2008[2]. As passing the civil-service exam and gaining entry to the privileged yangban class in the Choson dynasty in 14th century, these days passing the insanely competitive university entrance exam (the suneng) is a fundamental requirement for a decent job and an entry ticket to the upper class. With such motivation, according to the statistics provided by the Ministry of Education in Korea[3], the number of school for undergraduate courses had expanded from 109 in 1980 to the 222 in 2010, peaked in 2005 (224). In 1980, there were 448,515 students doing undergraduate courses. In 2010, this student number had reached 2,555,016, which is 5 times larger than that in 3 decades ago. As other developed countries, participation in the Korean higher education has continued to increase towards universal. A web publication, Our World In Data, projected the share of the population aged 15+ educated to degree level in Korea. The number of the share has been grown gradually from 16.6% in 1995 to 30.5% in 2015[4]. Such rapid evolution in higher education influences not only the human capital from a macro perspective, but also the course instruction from a micro perspective.
In order to cope with the challenges in higher education, a worldwide reform campaign has been discussed and practised. For example, in 2013, Stanford University proposed a project of Standford 2025. The project was built on four principles: the open loop university, paced education, the axis flip, and purpose learning. A summary of each principles are:
(a). the open loop university: this principle embraces lifelong learning by taking the college experience as a series of “loops” over the course of a lifetime. Students can return to the University for a mid-career refresh. Learning is not a time in our life, it’s a lifetime thing.
(b). paced education: students have more freedom about taking courses. Their study progress would be through personalised learning phases of varying lengths. They could choose to learn deeply or learn widely, along with better understanding of one's own learning styles and strengths.
(c). the axis flip: the curriculum is organised around skill competencies that could be used in many contexts over the course of a lifetime, rather than around traditional academic disciplines. Skill development is the foundation of learning, rather than knowledge with a particular discipline.
(d). purpose learning: students should declare their learning purposes. They learn with short term goals and long term goals. The goals could motivate them and give them on their career track. In addition, the goals would be to accelerate the University’s transformative contributions to the world by grounding the undergraduate experience in personal, deeply felt meaning.
From the project of Stanford 2025, we can see the future education is personalised, and continues learning for the dynamic and diverse career plan. The traditional education with single academic scope is not enough for the future challenges.
Challenges of Economics Education in the 21st Century
In particular, this article would like to discuss the challenges of economics education. When economics is in crisis, the profession is under attack from the media, employers and the general public. The economists are producing are not performing the tasks society demands. The Financial Crisis in 2008 is an obvious example of the current problem. In a conference supported by the Government Economic Service, the Bank of England, and the Royal Economic Society in 2012[5], several scholars urged a re-evaluation of economics education to the financial and economic crisis in 2008. As a speaker in the opening session of the conference noted: “The crisis was a large intellectual failure. We all got it largely wrong and have been using the wrong intellectual apparatus.”The Post-Crash Economics Society (PCES), a student society at The University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, have produced a compelling analysis of the failings in economics education and set out a road map for reform. They urge that the content of the economics syllabus and teaching methods could and should be seriously rethought. The PCES believes that the current economic education lacks of the training to understand the financial crisis, the worries about climate change, wealth inequality and unemployment. If economics education is not fit for the purposes, it will not produce the skilled economists the society needs. The consequence is failures in economics, such as the Financial Crisis, will inevitably be repeated.
The PCES claims that current economics education is monopolised by a single school of thought commonly referred to as neoclassical economics. This lack of competing thought stifles innovation, damages creativity and suppresses the constructive criticisms that are so vital for economic understanding and advancement. There is also a distinct lack of real-world application of economic ideas, with the focus being on abstract modelling that often seems devoid from reality. Finally, the study of ethics, politics and history are almost completely absent from the syllabus.
Before proceeding to a solution, this article would like to summarise and indicate the challenges of learning in higher education in the 21st century: dynamic world and diverse learning purpose. The world is changing dramatically. The traditional education system is not enough to illustrate and provide sufficient solution for incoming challenges. The career path is no longer as simple as before. Many jobs are created by a new technology and many jobs vanish due to the new invention. Thus, the future education should be personalised learning and distance learning.
(a) Personalised learning
The academic community has taken more attention on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary programs when the traditional disciplines are unable or unwilling to address an important problem. Practice of interdisciplinary research and teaching are getting popular. Since 1998, a growth in the number of bachelor's degrees awarded at U.S. universities classified as multi- or interdisciplinary studies.
With the movement in academia, compared to two decades ago, the number of students taking a double-major programme has dramatically increased. In order to survive in the severe competition in the job market, students are desperately seeking to build a career path with global competitiveness and multiple skills.
Therefore, the 21st-century education shall provide a personalised learning programme. Universities used to be the places where students specialised their skills and abilities; nowadays they have turned to encourage their students to expand their interests. Students could customise their programmes for their personal career path. On the other hand, the course instructors shall provide a student-oriented learning strategy for their diverse needs.
(b) Distance learning
The expansion of the Internet and technology development have changed students’ learning dramatically. The technology could help them easily reach to massive and diverse-sourced information. For example, anyone who is interested in learning could access to a course on MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) or Coursera[6]. Access to those courses has allowed students to obtain a decent level of education provided by excellent lecturers in elite universities that many only could dream of in the past. Not mention that those courses are almost free in terms of money and time constraints, as long as you can reach to the Internet. This trend has changed the face of education in the 21st century.
Given the contemporary emphasis being placed on experimentation with online learning, it is worth considered that what interesting changes were also starting to happen in the in-person, physical learning environment. Whilst students are offered an alternative way of learning, course instructors shall think about a new learning strategy to cope with the situation. Joshua Kim’s article[7] “Why Every University Does Not Need a MOOC” noted that offering free material may not make sense for the individual university[8]. Besides, in the age of massive information, students are easily overwhelmed and struggled with big data and information. Information selection becomes top priority in learning. An instructor shall provide clear class rules and efficient learning guidelines to students. Below is an alternative way to cope with the current challenges in the higher education.
By doing so, students could learn at their own pace. The future education will not be constrained by time and space. Following, I would like to demonstrate a flipped classroom approach in economics education. This includes the teaching goal and detailed instruction.
3. A Flipped Classroom Approach
Flipped learning is a solution to the challenges of higher education. It is an instructional teaching strategy by reversing the pre-class previews and the traditional in-class lectures. In other words, the pre-class learning becomes instructional content. On the other hand, flipped learning moves activities, including those that may have traditionally been considered homework, into the classroom. In a flipped classroom, students watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions, or carry out research at home and engage in concepts with the guidance of the instructor in the class.
Having mentioned the challenges of the higher education, the flipped learning could provide solutions to cope with the challenges. Firstly, the flipped learning requires the instructor getting closer to students. The instructors act as tutors in the class. They not only do one-way knowledge delivery, but also provide student-oriented training for students’ needs. Secondly, the flipped learning could use the best of online courses. The instructors shall not compete with those excellent lecturers in elite universities, but using them as the best teaching assistants. Depending on their levels, students could approach to most adequate on-line resources. In other words, the flipped learning could turn the challenges into strongest advantages.
Balaban et al. (2016) provides evidence that the flipped classroom instructional format increases student final exam performance, relative to the traditional instructional format, in a large lecture principles of economics course. They found that the flipped classroom directly improves performance by 0.2 to 0.7 standardized deviations, depending on the type of flipped objective (i.e., knowledge, comprehension, application, or analysis). They also show that the flipped classroom improves effort during the semester, measured by in-class polling participation, and find some evidence of a heterogeneous, yet positive, effect of the flipped classroom by observable student characteristics and by the level of performance.
Following, I will provide my flipped education experience since 2014 to 2017. I have applied this approach in many courses, include macroeconomics, game theory, and environmental economics at the Catholic University of Korea. The students’ motivations were very different, including developing English level, learning economic theories, and understanding real world situation. Lecturing students for different levels and needs are also very different. The flipped learning allows students adjusting their learning pace by doing distance learning at home and practising at the class. Following is the course design.
Given the contemporary emphasis being placed on experimentation with online learning, it is worth considered that what interesting changes were also starting to happen in the in-person, physical learning environment. Whilst students are offered an alternative way of learning, course instructors shall think about a new learning strategy to cope with the situation. Joshua Kim’s article[7] “Why Every University Does Not Need a MOOC” noted that offering free material may not make sense for the individual university[8]. Besides, in the age of massive information, students are easily overwhelmed and struggled with big data and information. Information selection becomes top priority in learning. An instructor shall provide clear class rules and efficient learning guidelines to students. Below is an alternative way to cope with the current challenges in the higher education.
By doing so, students could learn at their own pace. The future education will not be constrained by time and space. Following, I would like to demonstrate a flipped classroom approach in economics education. This includes the teaching goal and detailed instruction.
3. A Flipped Classroom Approach
Flipped learning is a solution to the challenges of higher education. It is an instructional teaching strategy by reversing the pre-class previews and the traditional in-class lectures. In other words, the pre-class learning becomes instructional content. On the other hand, flipped learning moves activities, including those that may have traditionally been considered homework, into the classroom. In a flipped classroom, students watch online lectures, collaborate in online discussions, or carry out research at home and engage in concepts with the guidance of the instructor in the class.
Having mentioned the challenges of the higher education, the flipped learning could provide solutions to cope with the challenges. Firstly, the flipped learning requires the instructor getting closer to students. The instructors act as tutors in the class. They not only do one-way knowledge delivery, but also provide student-oriented training for students’ needs. Secondly, the flipped learning could use the best of online courses. The instructors shall not compete with those excellent lecturers in elite universities, but using them as the best teaching assistants. Depending on their levels, students could approach to most adequate on-line resources. In other words, the flipped learning could turn the challenges into strongest advantages.
Balaban et al. (2016) provides evidence that the flipped classroom instructional format increases student final exam performance, relative to the traditional instructional format, in a large lecture principles of economics course. They found that the flipped classroom directly improves performance by 0.2 to 0.7 standardized deviations, depending on the type of flipped objective (i.e., knowledge, comprehension, application, or analysis). They also show that the flipped classroom improves effort during the semester, measured by in-class polling participation, and find some evidence of a heterogeneous, yet positive, effect of the flipped classroom by observable student characteristics and by the level of performance.
Following, I will provide my flipped education experience since 2014 to 2017. I have applied this approach in many courses, include macroeconomics, game theory, and environmental economics at the Catholic University of Korea. The students’ motivations were very different, including developing English level, learning economic theories, and understanding real world situation. Lecturing students for different levels and needs are also very different. The flipped learning allows students adjusting their learning pace by doing distance learning at home and practising at the class. Following is the course design.
3.1 Course Design
The course was designed with several topics. Each topic is divided into three stages: pre-class self-learning, in-class group discussion, and post-class learning.
In the pre-class self-learning stage, students were expected to spend most of their effort. The expected studying time is 3 hours. An reading material or on-line videos were provided for their individual learning at home. The article length was 4-10 pages. Regarding on-line videos, a video illustrate one economic concept. Each video was up to 5 minutes and the total watching time was about 30 minutes for the whole topic[9]. After reading or watching the given materials, based on what they learnt, they should do an on-line quiz which contains 10 multiple questions and open questions. The purpose of multiple questions is checking their understanding immediately, and the purpose of open questions is letting students thinking.
Turning now to the in-class stage, they were assigned to a group of four and shared their experience about their individual homework in the first 15 minutes. After that, I would summarise their on-line answers. A classroom discussion starts from here. Based on their weakness in quiz, I explain with the lecture slides in a more efficient way.
Following that, they were given a list of problem sets for the group work. They were given 20-30 minutes for the group discussion and got invited to solve the problems on the stage. The purposes of this stage were self-evaluating understanding and learnt from each other. The instructor would only wade in when they did not know how to do it. At the final part of in-class activities, students were asked to build a problem set from what they learnt. The purpose is building their application skills. A problem set includes the background information, questions and answers. Students would show their understanding to apply to their own interested concepts.
In the post-class stage, they were encouraged to see other peer’s problem set. 70~80% of the final exam questions were selected from the students’ assignments. They could learn from the peer discussion and works.
3.2 Practise and Challenges in an Interdisciplinary Course
My first flipped classroom experience mixed both success and failures. Some of the students were motivated and found the course interesting. From the mid-semester student satisfaction survey conducted in 2015, students felt the great enthusiasm from the instructor. They claimed that their English levels have improved by watching the pre-class materials and participating in the in-class discussion. Some of them studied harder due to the pre-class activities which offered them more flexibility to preview and study in advance. A questionnaire conducted in week 13 has suggested several positive words students thought of this course: positive, interesting, cooperative, satisfied, and enjoyment.
However, a number of serious drawbacks were raised. Some students felt uneasy with the flipped learning because it was different from the traditional learning strategy. There were couple requests to have an additional summary of the pre-class and in-class activities. The MS3S suggested that they found the materials covered in class unhelpful. Particularly, some of them were unfamiliar with mathematics. They even felt frustrated by solving basic algebra. Several negative words from the questionnaire include anxiety, shame, isolated, bored, frustration.
These negative feelings mainly were due to inefficient and unhelpful in-class discussion. Several students commented that there was no discussion and they felt isolated and bored. To resolve this challenge, Palmer (2017), provided several feasible suggestions. He raised several paradoxes in teaching and learning. Paradoxes include, ‘the space should invite the voice of the individual and the voice of the group’, ‘the space should support solitude and surround it with the resources of community’ and ‘the space should welcome both silence and speech’, are relevant to this challenge. The instructor should embrace these paradoxes and design a clear and coordinative task for the group discussion. These would include the group formation (self-grouping might be helpful), feasible questions, rewards for tasks, and so forth. In my experience, I tried to increase the diversity of each group (by gender, year of study, and nationality). However, the gap between students was larger than I expected. Eventually, students felt isolated in the group because they did not feel comfortable in the discussion.
I have to admit that flipped learning is not a panacea to resolve for all difficulties in learning. Having said that, it offers an alternative way by changing the pedagogical design for autonomic studying before the class, and sharing knowledge with others.
4. Tips for Flipped Learning
(a) The pre-class reading materials and videos shall be prepared comprehensively for varying levels. The purposes of pre-class activities are delivering fundamental knowledge and motivating students. The videos shall introduce the basic concepts. A further explanation and example could be left in the in-class exercise. Especially, an interdisciplinary course would have students from different majors. Some fundamental skills, such as mathematics, might be their weakness. This challenge requires extra practise and assistance from the instructor. Fortunately, the on-line courses, such as Khan Academy on Youtube[10], could be good teaching assistance for students with special needs. For advanced students, further reading materials would help them to learn deeper and achieve their goals.
(b) The pre-class exercise, on-line quiz, should be clear and relevant to the materials. The purpose of quiz is checking their understanding and making students think. The multiple choice test shall ask basic level questions and the open questions trigger their interests in learning. Ambiguous, implicit and difficult questions might confuse and discourage them.
(c) A summary of the pre-class materials is helpful to some students in the class, before proceeding to the in-class activities. Particularly, it is suggested by some students who were more familiar to the traditional lecturing way. They need more explicit guideline when they were overwhelmed by massive information.
(d) The in-class discussion requires good team coordination. Considering some of them might be used to the spoon-feeding education, how to encourage the effective discussion would be very important for motivating their learning. The purposes of in-class exercise are examining students understanding and develop their problem-solving skills. At the same time, one exercise is provided. Students may see the exercise in different ways: some feel easy, some feel difficult. After solving the problem, students are encouraged to help other students in needs. Strong students could learn by teaching, while weak students could be assisted by the peers.
(e) Another in-class exercise is building students’ own problem sets. The purpose of this exercise is doing an application. This requires students have not only problem-solving skills but also advanced application skills. In each problem set, students should provide sufficient background information about the problem they would like to solve. They would ask several questions, each question is for one relevant concept about this topic. Also, they provide answers to the questions. The suggested length is one A4 page. So that students would not feel overloaded.
(f) After doing the exercise, a reflection sheet is suggested to reflect their learning. Students could write down their feeling about the topic and questions they did not solve. This could resolve their worries, and the instructor could collect their feedback to improve the teaching.
To conclude, though teaching materials and learning strategies improve with technology development and learning environment, the instructor would face different situation and challenges in the 21st century. The intrinsic motivation of teachers has been unchanged, and will be. Finally, this article would like to end with a quote from Nikos Kazantzakis about teachers: “True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own”.
Reference:
Balaban, R.A., Gilleskie, D.B., Tran, U., 2016. A quantitative evaluation of the flipped classroom in a large lecture principles of economics course. The Journal of Economic Education 47, 269-287
Palmer, P.J., 2017. The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life. John Wiley & Sons.
[9] There are many free resources available for flipped classroom. I employed jing for recording short videos (https://www.techsmith.com/jing.html) and broadcasted videos on the site of Screencast (http://www.screencast.com/).