Author Archives: Chaya Gopalan

Which Level of Students are Best Suited for Flipped Learning?
Chaya Gopalan, PhD, FAPS
Associate Professor, Departments of Applied Health, Primary Care and Health Systems
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

The flipped classroom (FC) is a student-centered teaching method that is embraced by educators in recent years for several reasons. According to Bergmann and Sams (2012), FC accommodates students’ busy schedules, helps struggling students, and allows self-pacing. In this teaching method, students are exposed to content prior to class in the form of assignments and the class time is structured to include mini-lectures so that students have opportunities to ask questions and engage with teachers. Additionally, the instructors can also administer learning activities, such as quizzes and group work so that students can gain a much deeper understanding of the content when compared to lectures alone. Khan Academy is an example of a FC that can be utilized by students ranging from elementary to high school.

A similar situation is true in the higher education arena where FC is introduced in courses ranging from community college all the way up to the graduate level courses in a wide variety of programs and professions. However, it is unclear as to which level, in particular, would benefit from the FC model the most. Ideally, college freshmen are open-minded and are able to adapt quickly to the FC approach thus being better prepared for the rest of their college years. Nevertheless, in a study conducted in China, for example, Li (2018) found that many freshmen do not utilize pre-class assignments and therefore are not prepared for in-class activities. For some freshmen, FC is not a new teaching method because they experienced it in their high schools. Introducing FC in the third and fourth years of undergraduate education, once again, could be argued as either “too late” because they have not been exposed to FC thus far, or “most ideal” because these students are more mature and do their pre-class work more reliably.   

Students’ experiences of the FC model can vary greatly. As part of an NSF-funded project, data collected from freshmen and sophomore STEM classrooms at a community college suggested that students’ perceptions, such as “learned more in the FC classroom” and “more engaged” were far less common when compared to the same level of students in a four-year institution. At the same time, when doctoral students entering a Nurse Anesthesia program were given a similar experience with FC, the response was overwhelmingly positive. On the other hand, for senior students in the Exercise Science program, their perception of FC was stronger than the freshmen-sophomore group but not as strong as that of the graduate students. Since the age of the freshmen-sophomore students at the community college varies considerably, assessing the most critical determinant can be challenging.

In summary, the students that achieve higher levels of educational experience seem to be able to utilize the FC method to the fullest extent. It must be noted that the majority of our students are experiencing FC for the very first time. Since this instructional approach demands regular study habits and time commitment while minimizing procrastination, students may take time to develop new learning strategies to be able to value their experience. Whether students respond similarly, provided they are exposed to FC classes more frequently across the curriculum, is yet to be seen.

Acknowledgements: Part of the data shared in this blog is funded by NSF-IUSE grant DUE – 1821664 “Examining Faculty Attitudes and Strategies that Support Successful Flipped Teaching”.

References

Bergmann, J., & Sams, A. (2012). Flip your classroom: Reach every student in every class every day. Eugene, Or: International Society for Technology in Education.
Li, Yi. (2018). Current problems with the prerequisites for flipped classroom teaching—a case study in a university in Northwest China. Smart Learning Environments, 5:2

Dr. Chaya Gopalan received her PhD in Physiology from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Upon completing two years of postdoctoral training at Michigan State University, she began her teaching career at St. Louis Community College. After a short tenure at St. Louis College of Pharmacy, Dr. Gopalan joined the departments of Applied Health, Primary Care and Health Systems at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her teaching is in the areas of anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Gopalan has been practicing evidence-based teaching where she has tested team-based learning methodology, case-based learning methodology and most recently, the flipped classroom. She has received several research grants in pursuing her research interests.

How to motivate students to come prepared for class?

The flipped classroom is a teaching method where the first exposure to the subject occurs in an individual learning space and time and the application of content is practiced in an interactive guided group space. Freeing up class time by shifting traditional lecture outside of class allows the instructor more time for student-centered activities and formative assessments which are beneficial to students. The flipped teaching model has been shown to benefit students as it allows self-pacing, encourages students to become independent learners, and assists them to remain engaged in the classroom. In addition, students can access content anytime and from anywhere. Furthermore, collaborative learning and peer tutoring can be integrated due to freed-up class time with this student-centered approach. Given these benefits, the flipped teaching method has been shown to improve student performance compared to traditional lecture-based teaching. Compared to the flipped classroom, the traditional didactic lecture is considered a passive type of delivery where students may be hesitant to ask questions and may omit key points while trying to write or type notes.

There are two key components in the flipped teaching model: pre-class preparation by students and in-class student-centered activities. Both steps involve formative assessments to hold students accountable. The importance of the pre-class assessment is mainly to encourage students to complete their assignments and therefore, they are better prepared for the in-class application of knowledge. In-class activities involve application of knowledge in a collaborative space with the guidance of the instructor. Although the flipped teaching method is highly structured, students still come to class unprepared.

Retrieval practice is yet another powerful learning tool where learners are expected to recall information after being exposed to the content. Recalling information from memory strengthens information and forgetting is less likely to occur. Retrieval of information strengthens skills through long-term meaningful learning. Repeated retrieval through exercises involving inquiry of information is shown to improve learning.

The use of retrieval strategy in pre-class assessments is expected to increase the chance of students completing their pre-class assignment, which is often a challenge. Students attending class without having any exposure to the pre-class assignment in the flipped classroom will drastically affect their performance in the classroom. In my flipped classroom, a quiz consisting of lower level of Bloom’s taxonomy questions is given over the pre-class assignment where the students are not expected to utilize any resources or notes but to answer questions from their own knowledge. Once this exercise is completed, a review of the quiz and the active learning portion of the class occurs. I use a modified team-based learning activity where the groups begin answering higher order application questions. Again, no resources are accessible during this activity to promote their preparation beforehand. Since it is a group activity, if one student is not prepared, other students may fill this gap. The group typically engages every student and there is a rich conversation of the topic being discussed in class. The classroom becomes a perfect place for collaborative learning and peer tutoring. For rapid feedback to the students, the group answers to application questions are discussed with the instructor prior to the end of the class session.

Student preparation has improved since the incorporation of the flipped teaching model along with retrieval exercises in my teaching, but there are always some students who are not motivated to come prepared to class. It is possible that there are other constraints students may have that we will not be able to fix but will continue to be searching for and developing newer strategies for helping these students maximize their learning.

Dr. Gopalan received her PhD in Physiology from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. After completing two years of postdoctoral training at Michigan State University, she began her teaching endeavor at Maryville University where she taught Advanced Physiology and Pathophysiology courses in the Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy programs as well as the two-semester sequence of Human Anatomy and Physiology (A&P) courses to Nursing students. She later joined St. Louis Community College where she continued to teach A&P courses. Dr. Gopalan also taught at St. Louis College of Pharmacy prior to her current faculty position at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville where she teaches Advanced Human Physiology and Pathophysiology for the doctoral degrees in the Nurse Anesthetist and Nurse Practitioner programs. Besides teaching, she has an active research agenda in teaching as well as in the endocrine physiology field she was trained in.
Student Preparation for Flipped Classroom

Flipped teaching is a hybrid educational format that shifts lectures out of the classroom to transform class time as a time for student-centered active learning. Essentially, typical classwork (the lecture) is now done elsewhere via lecture videos and other study materials, and typical homework (problem solving and practice) is done in class under the guidance of the faculty member. This new teaching strategy has gained enormous attention in recent years as it not only allows active participation of students, but also introduces concepts in a repetitive manner with both access to help and opportunities to work with peers. Flipped teaching paves the way for instructors to use classroom time to engage students in higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy such as application, analysis, and synthesis. Students often find flipped teaching as busy work especially if they are not previously introduced to this teaching method. Pre-class preparation combined with a formative assessment can be overwhelming especially if students are not used to studying on a regular basis.

When I flipped my teaching in a large class of 241 students in an Advanced Physiology course in the professional year-1 of a pharmacy program almost a decade ago, the first two class sessions were very discouraging. The flipped teaching format was explained to students as a new, exciting, and innovative teaching method, without any boring lectures in class. Instead they would be watching lectures on video, and then working on challenging activities in class as groups. However, the majority of the students did not complete their pre-class assignment for their first class session. The number of students accessing recorded lectures was tracked where the second session was better than the first but still far from the actual class size. The unprepared students struggled to solve application questions in groups as an in-class activity and the tension it created was noticeable.  The first week went by and I began to doubt its practicality or that it would interfere with student learning, and consequently I should switch to the traditional teaching format. During this confusion, I received an email from the college’s Instructional Technology office wondering what I had done to my students as their lecture video access had broken college’s records for any one day’s access to resources. Yes, students were preparing for this class! Soon, the tension in the classroom disappeared and students started performing better and their course evaluations spoke highly of this new teaching methodology. At least two-thirds of the class agreed that flipped teaching changed the way they studied. This success could be credited to persistence with which flipped teaching was implemented despite student resistance.

I taught another course entitled Biology of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases, which is required for Exercise Science majors and met three times per week. Although students in this course participated without any resistance, their unsolicited student evaluations distinctly mentioned how difficult it was to keep up with class work with this novel teaching approach. Based on this feedback, I set aside one meeting session per week as preparation time for in-class activities during the other two days. This format eased the workload and students were able to perform much better. This student buy-in has helped improve the course design significantly and to increase student engagement in learning. Flexibility in structuring flipped teaching is yet another strategy in improving student preparation.

While one of the situations required persistence to make flipped teaching work, the other situation led me to modify the design where one out of three weekly sessions was considered preparation time. In spite of these adaptations, the completion of pre-class assignment is not always 100 percent. Some students count on their group members to solve application questions. A few strategies that are expected to increase student preparation are the use of retrieval approach to flipped teaching where students will not be allowed to use any learning resources except their own knowledge from the pre-class assignments. Individual assessment such as the use of clickers instead of team-based learning is anticipated to increase student preparation as well.

Dr. Chaya Gopalan earned her Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Glasgow. Upon her postdoctoral training at Michigan State University, she started teaching advanced physiology, pathophysiology and anatomy and physiology courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in a variety of allied health programs. Currently she teaches physiology and pathophysiology courses in the nurse anesthetist (CRNA), nurse practitioner, as well as in the exercise science programs. She practices team-based learning and flipped classroom in her everyday teaching.