It has been a busy week with delivering an introductory lecture, sharing the Flipped Classroom (FC) video and then hosting three 90 minute webinars as the face-to-face element of the FC.
In spite of not planning any particular structure to the webinars – other than the usual method I’d use to guide a group discussion – all of the sessions went well and the students were very engaged and complimentary about the usefulness of the sessions. With one student commenting…
The why question for me, really helped me understand what I was looking for. Which before didn’t always seem so clear.
Anonymous, 2023
I was surprised by the level of engagement I got from the students given that the FC was an entirely optional part of the course and that it came on top of the standard week five work set in the module.
I found the webinars invigorating to work on but was challenged a little by not having any structure to them at all. Crucially I did not test for comprehension of the concept introduced in the video and so could not determine how broadly spread the students’ learning was, nor could I actively build forward from those positions.
In future I will build in some elements, and crucially key language, to reinforce the links between the two elements and to test for learning. In retrospect there is a possibility that students may feel they watched a video unnecessarily because it wasn’t explicitly tested for in the face-to-face session.
In Faculty Focus, Rob Kelly, states that:
When the online and face-to-face components complement each other as integrated activities in each setting, there is a clear purpose and students understand the relevance of both modes.
(Kelly, 2013)
He goes on to cite an interview with Kelvin Thompson in talking about to use language to explicitly link the various elements of a blended curriculum:
Be explicit in making the connections between the two modalities by acknowledging and extending the interaction in each. Thompson suggests taking time in face-to-face sessions to talk about online discussions by saying things such as “Wasn’t that a great discussion we had last week? Some things that stood out to me were x, y, and z. I thought we might take a couple of minutes and extend that.” Conversely, you can use something that occurs in a face-to-face session to begin an online discussion by saying things such as “That’s going to be our on-ramp to our online discussion this week.” Thompson says that making these explicit connections goes a long way toward using student-to-student interaction to support integration of the online and face-to-face modes of a blended course.
(Kelly, 2013)
This has made me realise that I need to loosely script intro and outdo elements of the f-2-f session so that these links are made clear. That intro should also include a test for understanding. This could be as simple as asking who watched the video and what their initial thoughts are or, with a larger group, splitting them into smaller groups to discuss it amongst themselves. This would allow for those who didn’t understand the concept to be brought up to speed a little by their peers.
These small group sessions are a key part of the student learning experience and are increasingly difficult to do with large student cohorts. But Phil Race argues that:
The essence of small group learning is very much about the things that can’t be gathered online – talking, listening, explaining, interacting, arguing, debating, and learning from fellow students as well as from tutors.
(Race, 2020, p.240)
Deliberately designing to amplify these attributes is much needed in my webinars and much as I am experienced through professional work, and volunteering, in facilitating group discussions I can do better by the students by preparing more and not simply hoping I’ll be able to handle whatever discussion happens to come up.
Bloxham, Boyd assert the importance of using formative assessment as a means to modify teaching plans in response to information about students’ learning (Bloxham and Boyd, 2007)
Reference list
Biggs, J., Tang, C. and Kennedy, G. (2022). Teaching for Quality Learning at University 5e. Open University Press, p.18.
Kelly, R. (2013). Blended Learning: Integrating Online and Face-to-Face Courses. [online] Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning. Available at: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/blended-flipped-learning/blended-learning-integrating-online-and-face-to-face-courses/.
Race, P. (2020). The lecturer’s toolkit : a practical guide to assessment, learning and teaching. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, Ny: Routledge, p.240.