How to improve blended learning with Covid-19 arrangement in private schools using flipped classroom?
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Flipped Learning
Flip your class to make learning grip.
Before we dig in the flipped classroom and blended learning arrangements, we need to visualize how the learning is going to be conducted across UAE, as a driving experience for many other countries in the region and around the world.
From an instructional design perspective, all schools have their prototype tested at the third term of the last academic year, which is a huge step to put aside and to move further with the instruction. All schools already know the defects and the successes of their online learning experience with their audience, and what it needs to be done now is how to flip the learning and make it work with all the combinations that the KHDA had proposed for the schools:
Students will be present at the school for a fulltime school day.
Students will have to be at the school for a half school day only.
Students will attend for just 2 days per week.
Students will have face-to-face sessions every 2 weeks, against 2 weeks of online learning.
Students will have to attend for 2 days the first week and 3 days for the next week, while they will get in the rest of the days online learning from home.
All of these combinations displayed above are blended learning with a flipped classroom approach. Flipped classroom, as explained at the beginning of this chapter, is when students learn the lesson online and practice their learning in a classroom setting. It is self-directed learning with two approaches for learning: pedagogical and andragogical approach that must be combined in harmony to be able to extend learning into students’ homes in an organized and structured way.
Flipped learning model reduces teacher-centered learning and students are well involved with the content as they are invited to understand the topic before the face-to-face sessions, which gives to the teacher a classroom full of ideas that the students constructed during their home learning, and creates a rich field for discussions. This particular detail was noticeable during the last school term where students could come to the sessions with considerable knowledge for the topic, and they could share their math strategies and readings with their peers and teachers in the synchronous sessions. It also maximizes the in-class learning time as the content is already available to the students on their school platforms.
Instructional designers can combine pedagogy and andragogy for UAE schools using the theories elaborated in chapter 1. Each theory will have an impact on the learning process and will help the instructional designer balance his strategies with the learning outcomes. On the other hand, they need to include a step by step strategy for the teachers to clarify how they will flip their classrooms (According to Faculty Innovation Center, the University of Texas at Austin).
STEP 1 | Instructors need to identify what is the most important activity students can achieve in the classroom to demonstrate their skills, abilities, and reveal their gap in learning. Besides, they need to allocate the topics that most students struggle with during the assessments, based on previous results, and to allocate the concepts where the instructor’s guidance is a must.
STEP 2 | Instructors must dig deep into how to engage their students in face-to-face sessions with valuable feedback during the activities and applications. It is also necessary to understand how to engage them in an effective evidence-based instructional approach by leveraging collaboration and problem-based learning with peer feedback to find out what was easy and what was difficult in the topic to learn. This will solve some misconceptions and eliminate confusion that the students might have from self-learning.
STEP 3 | Instructors must define the learning goals for each session and know what are the exact practices to apply in face-to-face sessions that will prepare the students for the larger assignment posted online, taking into consideration that the students must get the connection between what is happening online and what they are practicing in the classroom. They also need to access a range of resources that will help them gain knowledge according to what they find comfortable for their learning and time. Consequently, the choice of the resources and tools to represent the content must help them manage the workload before and after the face-to-face class.
STEP 4 | Adapting the material of the course is to build balanced online resources and an organized environment for learning that will prepare the students for the acquisition of learning as we expect them to come prepared for the face-to-face session. To do so, it is important to know what is needed for reading, what is needed for skill building, and what is required for the testing. Strategies and tools might vary from a platform to another, but what matters is to know how our students learn, and that is the role of the instructional designer who must gather information at the testing of the methodology for learning that was conducted earlier this academic year (2020).
However, knowing what the student needs to view in a video presentation and what to read from a book chapter, a PDF, or a textbook will reduce the cognitive load as it will chunk the content into small objectives. The instructor must prepare his course to grow harder: keep the platform and the learning objectives simple at the beginning of the semester then increase gradually the learning objectives and the content will increase for the learners. Some K-12 classes will require the integration of a forum where the instructor will ask a critical question that will guide the students to read more or to explore more resources to be able to answer the forum question.
The instructor might also encourage interaction between the students in the forums by asking his students to comment on their peers’ answers with questions or building on their ideas. Whatever is the strategy followed, the instructor must provide the learner with a PowerPoint presentation or a PDF where he gathers all the content of the session as a roadmap for the student, a palpable content to use for revision purposes.
STEP 5 | Instructors must provide a chance to their students to extend their learning by providing projects, quizzes, or assignments that invite the student to search for more resources outside his learning platform to be able to deepen his knowledge in the topic in question. Discussion boards, social media, additional readings about what was practiced in face-to-face sessions, LMS forums, and wikis are some ideas for inviting students to deepen their understanding and gain mastery.
Students’ grade-level might represent an obstacle in conducting an effective flipped classroom especially for students with determination. Parents might not be able to deal with their child's disability and feel overwhelmed with the amount of work and time they need to spend with one of their children. To cover this gap, the instruction might allow for extra synchronous sessions providing to the elementary disabled students the right guidance, one-on-one teaching sessions, or even expand the in-class time by designing some extra activities with the SEND teacher.
Another instance that the parent might find frustrating and that the instructional designer should review constantly with the instructor is the type of resources and materials students with determination might struggle with, and explore alternatives for the instructor to facilitate the student’s interaction with the content. Some applications and software look very easy to use by any child while in fact, they represent a challenge for students with a certain disability. Parents’ feedback can help understand how their child can finish his work faster and submit his assignment online in a way that reflects the efforts deployed by his own.
However, flipped classroom requires a certain level of self-learning, it is important though to keep up the same features and challenges for all students: if the child cannot conduct self-learning in the way we present it to him, it is time for the instructional designer to find another solution, another platform, with other resources or tools! Constant evaluation of the processes is a must to achieve successful learning at all times.
This article was published by Awa at linkedin, 2020, HERE.
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