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Thinking about perception – I am now approaching the end of my first flipped academic year.  I have personally found that this has allowed me to refine the content to exactly what the student’s need, so cover more content whilst having more class time for improved learning strategies and developing deeper understanding which has resulted in all round better grades. Yet I also know that this is just my perception and that I do not have enough data to realistically make statements about better achievement.  Recognizing this, I decided to search for some harder data and distributed questionnaires to those teachers exposed in some way to my flipped class experience (department members, line managers and other interested parties.

 

 

For my teacher questionnaire I was really interested in how perception was changed through observing my experience.  I asked this sample to remember their opinions at the start of the year and to identify changes.

At the start of the year the sample showed overall neutral to positive attitude towards what they perceived to be the flipped classroom.  Highlighting benefits such as:

  • Better position to respond to student needs/ Differentiation easier to manage
  • Encouraging use of prior knowledge to expand on in class
  • More time to take on challenging concepts

However, the sample also had a number of concerns:

  • Overreliance on dumping content onto homework time
  • Lack of student motivation/ students not completing tasks

Now a year later the sample has shifted to an even more positive attitude towards what they perceive to be the flipped classroom.  They have also identified the following recognizes additional benefits of the flipped classroom:

  • Challenges teachers to stop lecturing
  • Frees up time to do real learning/ Greater onus on learning
  • Opportunity for deeper understanding

However, new issues have also been highlighted:

  • Students need more education about this teaching style
  • Parents need to be educated

I also asked about where they felt the flipped classroom could be utilized and they indicated with older students in math, science and, surprisingly for me, languages.

 

So this is interesting and shows a positive change in perception about the flipped classroom.  The problem is this is all about perception and not about what is actually happening and for that I have to ask my students and that will be in my next blog post…