This morning I want to share one of the issues I grappled with this year in my online flipped learning courses for pre-service teachers. For those unfamiliar with the concept of flipped learning, here is a short explanation:
Before I describe my experience, I will remind myself and my readers that this wasn’t a routine online learning situation; this was learning forced online in response to the pandemic. My students were learning 100% online for most of the year and were participating in a wide range of courses presented in different ways. Many students were struggling academically and financially, some were juggling study with small children present, and others were working full time from home alongside their studies.
I designed courses that consisted of synchronous lessons on Zoom and a-synchronous individual study units. The synchronous lessons were ninety minutes once a fortnight, and in the weeks in between, the students were expected to complete the asynchronous units. The synchronous lessons on Zoom were active, interactive, and collaborative and were supposed to be based on what the students had learned independently.
I devoted an enormous amount of time and effort planning the a-synchronous lessons, usually short readings or instructional videos interspersed with interactive games, quizzes, and short exercises. I created a sequence of materials and tasks in a ThingLink or a self-paced Nearpod presentation.
I wanted the display of the materials to be aesthetic, eye-catching and user friendly. I intended each unit to be made up of several doable, low-stakes tasks, meaning that no single activity would be heavily weighted in the assessment. I aimed for the study units to take 90 minutes to complete, the time allotted for the lessons in the timetable. Of course, the work pace of each student is different, but I expected the students to utilise the time in which we weren’t meeting on Zoom to complete the work. I explained that the units could be studied in one sitting or broken up and executed according to personal time limitations.
During the course, I stopped and asked the students for feedback, explaining that their comments and suggestions direct me in my planning. I also received feedback in the mid-year student evaluations submitted to the college. I am happy to say that most of the feedback was positive and very encouraging, but a comment troubled me, and it appeared several times. A few conscientious students who were doing well in the course remarked that there was too much homework, significantly more than in other classes. They all used the word ‘homework’, and this surprised me. When the comment was first made, in a synchronous lesson, in a feedback conversation I had with the group, my immediate reply was: “Homework? There isn’t any homework in this course!” I then thought for a second and explained: “If you make time and sit down in the time slot of our lesson, regardless of whether there is a synchronous lesson on Zoom or not, you will be able to do the tasks and not feel that you are dragging the work through the week. You do have a fortnight to complete the unit, but you are supposed to complete it in the ninety minutes of allocated class time”. I also reminded the students that they do not have large assignments or exams in addition to the study units; they are the basis of assessment in the course.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines homework as – “an assignment given to a student to be completed outside the regular class period”. All the tasks given were supposed to be completed in class time in the weeks we weren’t meeting. Unfortunately, I failed in convincing my students; they continued to view the tasks as an extra as they occurred outside our synchronous lesson. They did not consider the ninety minutes in the in-between weeks when calculating class time.
In one of the flipped-classroom courses, several students displayed difficulty in time management; they were not coping with the workload in the program. In response, I offered to be online for the ninety minutes allocated for the course in the in-between weeks when there was no synchronous class. I reminded them that this was the time allotted for the course in the timetable and that if they use that time fortnightly, they will manage the workload better. I invited them to join me online and explained that they would receive a quiet workspace in an individual breakout room, an opportunity to ask me questions or receive assistance with the tasks, and an added sense of commitment to complete the tasks. Surprisingly (or not), only one student took up my offer, and that only happened once.
Compared with other courses that leave the students with large assignments and exams at the end of the semester or academic year, students who kept up to date with my a-synchronous units throughout the year finished the year with no additional requirements. Maybe the students understood what I had been attempting to explain throughout the course when they reached the finish line, but perhaps they didn’t. This is indeed a question I will be following up on in my research.
In another post, I will discuss my flexibility in task submission dates and the advantages and disadvantages connected, but I will mention that I was very flexible and understanding of the complexity of studying from home mid-covid 2021.
I would love to hear from others working in flipped learning settings. Is my situation familiar to you? I would appreciate your thoughts on how I can change the students’ perspective and help them fully understand the course structure and the role of the tasks set.
