Flipping a
class usually involves students reading or watching videos before class. IBL focuses on allowing and encouraging students to develop material on their
own. ‘Both styles emphasize active learning and critical thinking through activities
such as group work and presentations while minimizing lectures’ (Capaldi, 2015,
p.736). The two teaching
styles/models can complement one another in many ways and be implemented
concurrently (Gorman, 2013).
This is what this research aims at, exploiting the benefits and minimizing the
drawbacks of the two models, developing IB-FC instructional designs/learning
cycles, recognizing the varying positive effects of combining the two models
(IB-FC model) (Jong, 2017).
Figure 1 illustrates how in a typical day both models share in principle
the same list of activities, differentiating in the pre-class activity and its
assessment. Variations between group and individual work exist. However,
compared to a traditional 90–95% lecture class course, both models are
inherently active allowing increased group learning time to try and develop
higher-order thinking skills.
Figure 1: FC model vs IBL model's activities
Two key features of the combination of the FC model and the IBL model
are engagement and conceptual understanding. Students need
to be engaged with material and not passively listen to it. In the FC model students
are supposed to view flips and all assigned material before in-class time
whilst if IBL model methods are used during in-class time more leading
questions will be used on the material covered at home compared to giving
direct answers, leading to group discussions (Lo & Hew, 2017). The purpose
of engaging with content is to gain deep conceptual understanding. Research
shows that this is not gained through lectures (Epstein, 2013). This goal is
one of the simple reasons that FC and IBL approaches go so well together in
many disciples (Hung, 2014).
When combining flipped
pedagogy with IBL, most of class time should be spent on group work and
presentations. These activities can involve problems from the pre-class reading
or video, or new problems first seen in class (Capaldi, 2015; Pierce & Fox, 2012). One method of incorporating IBL into the FC is for
students to solve harder examples using new strategies not seen in the reading
or video. Working through difficult questions often generates a rich discussion
within groups.
While IBL and the FC are both
newer innovations in teaching, a partnership of the two is proposed in this
research to increase student engagement and learning. Past research on teaching
a hybrid flipped/IBL class in Maths (Capaldi, 2015), STEM courses (Love et al.,
2015) or even in pharmacotherapy modules (Pierce & Fox, 2012) in Higher
Education showed that the combination had been successful as they are natural
partners. Aidinopoulou and Sampson’s (2017) research on the FC model in a Greek
primary school concentrated on history teaching and revealed that indeed, the
classroom based sessions of the experimental group were used for engaging
student-centered activities and that this resulted into better learning
outcomes in terms of demonstrating critical thinking skills. Therefore, IBL is
a perfect instructional practice to use
for the freed-up time arising from FC implementation (Love et al., 2015).
Encouraging collaboration and the communication of new knowledge learned from
flips between learners features injecting IBL into FC and vice verca and in
increasing confidence and helping students to learn how to learn creating
lifelong learners.
Identifying a lack of
theoretical underpinning for FC model pedagogical design and in an attempt to
find ways to keep students engaged and how to instill deep content knowledge,
the theoretical framework of this research will be a combination of the FC
model and the IBL model, called IB-FC model-draft version (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Research theoretical framework: The IB-FC model (initial draft version)
In Figure 2, the main
principles of an IBL model arising from literature (explore/conjecture, discover/investigate,
collaborate/communicate, knowledge building) are incorporated within a FC model,
which distinguishes between in-class and out of class activities, giving rise
to a draft version of the IB-FC model framework, the theoretical framework of
the research. This draft version will be revised as the research proceeds.
