The flipped classroom has positive effects on academic performance [1] and engagement [2]. It is also an inclusive learning methodology [3]. However, students resist transitioning to active learning because they lack an understanding of the reasoning behind it and are accustomed to teacher-centred practices. This issue is more pronounced in international students, whose cultural differences, derived from traditional education systems, play a major role in their resistance to adopting active learning [4], resulting in lower engagement and academic performance.
In this presentation, I am going to introduce a new approach to mitigate resistance to active learning, based on sports coaching cultural references that parallel active learning. This methodology was applied to a small cohort of 11 international MSc students enrolled in a Chemical Sustainability module taught as a flipped classroom. Preliminary results show that the use of sports coaching references was welcomed by the students and helped them understand and transition into flipped learning.
References
[1] Fisher, R., Perényi, Á., & Birdthistle, N. (2018). The positive relationship between flipped and blended learning and student engagement, performance and satisfaction. Active Learning in Higher Education, 22(2), 97-113.
[2] Gilboy, M. B., Heinerichs, S., & Pazzaglia, G. (2015). Enhancing student engagement using the flipped classroom. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 47(1), 109-114.
[3] Lage, M. J., Platt, G. J., & Treglia, M. (2000). Inverting the classroom: A gateway to creating an inclusive learning environment. The Journal of Economic Education, 31(1), 30.
[4] Owens, D. C., Barlow, A. T., & Smith-Walters, C. (2020). Student motivation and resistance in active learning classrooms. In Active Learning in College Science (pp. 927-942). Springer, Cham.
Hello, my name is David Palomas, and I am a lecturer in the Chemistry Department at UCL. In this presentation I am going to show you the preliminary results of a new approach for flipped classroom in which we are using Cultural references from sports coaching to support international students.
Slide 2: Known Benefits of Active Learning
Some of the well-known benefits of active learning described in the literature include an improved academic performance, increase of engagement and a positive impact in academic inclusion.
Slide 3: Student Resistance to Active Learning
Despite all these benefits, students still resist active learning practices leading to lower engagement and academic performances. Some of the most common reasons for this resistance are a lack of understanding of active learning and students being adapted to traditional teaching. These issues tend to be more common in our international students who usually are more accustomed to traditional teaching.
Slide 4: Student Resistance to Active Learning
This poses some sort of engagement paradox. Do we need to engage our students with active learning, so we observe an increase in engagement?
Slide 5: Student Resistance to Active Learning
Our approach to student resistance is making active learning more relatable by using sports cultural references, so students transition to active learning in a context they understand. To achieve that, we use common language used in sports that parallels active learning and in the same way we have individual and team sports we cultivate individual and group learning skills.
Slide 6: Tennis Coaching in Flipped Classroom
This is the Tennis Coaching model we use in Flipped Classroom, where we compare traditional teaching with flipped classroom. With this model, traditional teaching looks like going to the court to see your lecturers playing tennis and then practice on your own before you have your assessment, in this case a grand-slam like Wimbledon.
In flipped classroom you go first through educational materials to learn the theory behind playing tennis and then practice with your lecturer-coach before you enter the grand slam.
Slide 7: Tennis Coaching in Flipped Classroom
In this model the conclusion we expect is that it is more difficult to achieve good results, to win Wimbledon, if you don’t practice with your coach.
Slide 8: Tennis Coaching in Flipped Classroom
Of course, you can always argue that there are students that will be successful in both approaches.
Slide 9: Tennis Coaching in Flipped Classroom
However, we are not targeting the students that will always perform well. We want to support the low achievers and the disadvantaged students.
Slide 10: Preliminary Results
In the last slides of this presentation, I would like to show you some preliminary results of using this methodology. We worked with a small cohort of 11 students all international. Before we started the module, we asked them if they had ever heard of flipped classroom.
Slide 11: Preliminary Results
We obtained 8 answers out of 11 students. 5 of them had never heard of flipped classroom and curiously these students were the ones that has never studied abroad which is not surprising knowing that our international students are the ones that struggle the most with active learning.
Slide 12: Preliminary Results
At the end of the module, we did another survey and asked our students if they understand flipped classroom. We obtained eight answers out of eleven students. In a Likert scale of 1 to 5. One student answered 4 and the other seven answered 5.
Slide 13: Preliminary Results
For the question of if the comparison of sports coaching had helped to understand flipped classroom, four students answered 4 and five students answered 5.
Slide 14: Students' Feedback
It is still early days, but our preliminary results point at a positive impact of using sports coaching culture in the students’ transition to flipped classroom. We also had some positive feedback from the students welcoming flipped classroom but at the moment we are not able to tell how much of the good experience the students had has to do with our approach of sports coaching culture.
Slide 15: Thanks for your kind attention
And that was it, thanks for your kind attention. If you want to know more about the use of sports couching in active learning, please contact me! I’ll leave you a QR code and email so you can find me.
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