Week 6 - evaluating a flipped classroom design

What three key things do you think are important to consider when evaluating and making judgements about the effectiveness of a flipped classroom approach? Why?

When evaluating and judging the effectiveness of a flipped classroom approach, the student's reactions to the material is key. Do they engage? Are they managing to achieve the learning outcomes of the course? Is the technology supporting or hindering their performance? As much as we as tutors do not want to be the "sage on the stage", we also don't want the technology to take the limelight away from the learning material itself. 

The accessibility of the learning material needs to be easy, with as few digital complexities as possible. As pointed out in the Cofa Online video last week, “you can’t assume digital literacy”. Videos are a great way of making content more dynamic and easier to digest. 

With all content, it is important to assess it's relevance against the learning outcomes that the students will need to work towards. This makes me think about how they document their learning and personal development, as this needs to be intuitive for them, but also easy for educators to formatively and summatively assess. I would like to learn about more formats in this context, and how to introduce these into existing courses.

It is important to think about the students on the course – are they full or part time? What other commitments might they have, which they need to fit their learning around? The flipped classroom needs to support students to be flexible in their engagement with the course, so that they don’t feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the challenges set.

Evaluating a flipped classroom approach

1 - Identify evaluation criteria. Reflect on what you have learned about the flipped classroom approach, to identify evaluation criteria

2 - Use criteria to make judgements about what is effective or not. Identify and clarify what is working well and could be continued. Identify and clarity what is not working well and could be improved.

3 - Plan the way forward. Generate ideas for further improvement. Evaluate and refine ideas for improvement. Develop ideas into specific actions and plans for future improvement.

What did I learn that could be relevant for making a judgement about whether a flipped classroom is effective or not?

In the first module we assessed our own micro teach sessions and those of two peers. This was a useful exercise in really thorough reflection, not something I always have done in the past. The format of the form we used to reflect was useful, but would I use this on a regular basis? I don’t think so. It would help if some more active questions were posed, as it was all very open. Maybe I could write my own set of reflective questions to use when assessing a new flipped classroom. I could set questions for myself and also design questions for the participating students so that I can gain effective feedback.

I need to think about how the learning outcomes of the course can be answered within a flipped classroom session. Does it encourage deep learning, rather than just surface level? Is it realistic - can the students complete all the tasks within the period set (taking into consideration life/work commitments)?

Who will be inputting into the assessment/judgement of a flipped classroom? Doing it as part of a conversation with peers would help push me to think about possible alternatives that I may not have considered on my own. Also, the more experience I have, the more insightful my reviewing process will be. At the moment, I have very little experience in designing or evaluating teaching methods (my own or others). But with experience I will hopefully gain skills.

The reading material throughout the course has added to my knowledge base, allowing me to draw on this when evaluating pedagogical methods.

My checklist of evaluation criteria:

• Does the FC answer the appropriate LOs?

• Is it accessible to the students?

• Are the tasks achievable and realistic in the allocated time?

• Does the FC encourage deep and long term learning?

• Is the material engaging and suitably challenging?

At this point I can’t complete the evaluation (step 2) of my flipped classroom as I haven’t run the workshop yet. I will be able to do this next weekend! I will ask participating students for feedback after the workshop, and also from the module leader who will be joining for at least part of the session. I will be recording it too. What questions should I ask my students?

• Did you find the content useful and engaging? If not, why?

• How engaging did you find the pre-session video tutorials? Were they thorough enough, or too long?

• What content do you feel was missing?

• Did you enjoy the live session? Was it interesting?

• Do you feel like you have learnt new skills?

What questions would I ask my module leader?

• Do you think the content was an efficient use of the webinar?

• Does the session support the students’ learning outcomes?

• What would you change if you were to run the session?

Once I have the results of these questions and my own reflections of the session, I will be able to start answering step three: planning the way forward. I will think about how I could refine and change the session to make it more engaging, making sure it answers the key LOs of the module.

FC evaluation checklist Harriet .pdf

Download PDF • 23KB

Andy Peisley Podcast on completing the assessment

• Thorough evaluation = maximum learning out of the experience

• This evaluation can be used for any style of teaching, not just flipped classroom

• What do I write for this assessment? What worked well? What could I change? Action planning? What next?

• Find a balance between breadth and depth in evaluating

• Identify 2 or 3 key themes that are relevant to my practice (part A)

• Explain themes in more detail in part B

• B start with a summary, then go into more depth.

• Add your checklist into the appendix with any commentary and refer to it in part B

• Demonstrate the learning outcomes well throughout

This has really helped me begin to structure my approach for this assessment. The week’s challenges have forced me to think in more depth about how my flipped classroom design looks currently and how it could be developed further. But I will leave it as it is for now, until I have trialled it and have received feedback from students and peer. This will be the most efficient approach. I have revised my session plan a bit, so that is a good step in the right direction.