Does ‘Flipped Learning’ Work? A New Analysis Dives Into the Research
Since the pandemic, extra instructors at faculties and faculties seem to have embraced “flipped learning,” the strategy of asking college students to observe lecture movies earlier than class in order that class time can be utilized for lively studying.
Proponents say the mannequin improves pupil outcomes by encouraging extra interplay amongst college students and professors, and lots of research have been carried out to measure the efficacy of the strategy. So a gaggle of professors lately carried out a meta-analysis to attempt to assess how effectively flipped studying is working.
The research thought of 173 research of flipped studying, in addition to 46 earlier meta-analyses of the strategy. And whereas lots of the research confirmed positive aspects for learners in some circumstances, the researchers concluded that flipped studying isn’t dwelling as much as its promise.
“The current levels of enthusiasm for flipped learning are not commensurate with and far exceed the vast variability of scientific evidence in its favor,” the paper argues.
In truth, the authors made the stunning conclusion that many cases of flipped studying contain extra time spent on passive studying than the conventional lecture mannequin, as a result of some professors each assign quick video lectures and spend a while in school lecturing to arrange for sophistication actions. As the authors put it: “Indeed, it seems that implementations of flipped learning perpetuate the things they claim to reduce, that is, passive learning.”
The far-reaching meta-analysis thought of flipped studying experiments performed in elementary faculties, excessive faculties and faculties, with the bulk of the research in the larger ed setting.
The greatest shock to the researchers as they coded every analysis venture was realizing what number of completely different variations of flipped studying exist, stated John Hattie, an emeritus professor at the University of Melbourne who co-authored the research. “The hype is convincing — it’s seductive — but the implementation of the hype is not,” he stated. “It has been implemented so variably.”
Another shock, Hattie stated, was that the extra lively studying performed in a flipped classroom, the worse the end result. He chalks that as much as the proven fact that many professors utilizing the mannequin don’t check whether or not college students are literally studying the materials offered in lecture movies, and so some college students who skip the movies or watch them on double-speed arrive in school unprepared for the actions.
The researchers do assume that flipped studying has advantage — whether it is performed rigorously. They finish their paper by presenting a mannequin of flipped studying they check with as “fail, flip, fix and feed,” which they are saying applies the only elements they discovered from their evaluation. Basically they argue that college students must be challenged with an issue even when they will’t correctly clear up it as a result of they haven’t discovered the materials but, after which the failure to resolve it can encourage them to observe the lecture on the lookout for the vital data. Then classroom time can be utilized to repair pupil misconceptions, with a mixture of a brief lecture and pupil actions. Finally, instructors assess the pupil work and provides suggestions.
“I hope our paper does not dismiss the ideas underlying [flipped learning] because they’re very powerful ideas,” Hattie stated.
‘Hey, We’re All on the Same Team Here’
Fans of flipped studying had some questions on the new research’s conclusions.
Among them is Robert Talbert, a professor in the arithmetic division at Grand Valley State University and writer of the ebook “Flipped Learning: A Guide for Higher Education Faculty.”
“It kind of takes flipped learning educators to task, and I thought that was super unnecessary,” Talbert stated. “I wanted to reach out to the authors and say, ‘Hey we’re all on the same team here.’ They’re part of the group doing flipped learning.”
He says he welcomes a tricky take a look at the analysis, however he argued that the research ignored some well-known analysis on lively studying. And he stated that by taking a look at flipped studying throughout Ok-12 faculties and faculties, the evaluation ended up evaluating apples and oranges.
“It’s a great discussion starter, and I’m never going to say we can’t publish things that are critical to flipped learning,” Talbert stated. “But the paper’s overall message was, ‘All of y’all are doing flipped learning wrong, and we’re doing it right.’ I didn’t think that was fair to people practicing flipped learning.”
The lead writer of the paper, Kapur Manu, a professor of studying science and better training at ETH Zurich, responded to that critique by saying he needed to push again towards an uneven implementation of a preferred educating development.
“I’m on team science, and this is what the empirical science is proving,” he stated in an interview. “The contribution is that we actually coded the kinds of activities” that went into flipped studying efforts. “When you do that, you find that active learning was not as present as it should have been.”
Talbert praised the mannequin the researchers offered, however he stated it appears very very similar to a paper by Bertrand Schneider and Paulo Blikstein that the researchers cited however didn’t talk about of their meta-analysis.
Hattie, considered one of the co-authors of the meta-analysis, acknowledged that their mannequin emerged partially from the experiments they examined. “The new model came particularly from the extensive work from the first author Kapur Manu, and he and I both learned from this paper and others to build the model,” he stated.
And Hattie argued that the uneven outcomes of flipped studying held true regardless of which sector of training thought of — Ok-12 or larger training.
One hope of the paper, he stated, is to encourage a extra detailed understanding of which components of flipped studying work finest in order that these leaping into a stylish educating technique might be efficient.
