A Monitoring Infrastructure to Improve Flipped Learning in Technological Courses

Abstract

Flipped learning changes the traditional instructional approach of lectures. In flipped classrooms, the students work at home, while in-class sessions are used for other more interactive and active learning approaches guided by the lecturer. While flipped learning has shown many benefits, it is not easy to include remote students in face-to-face in-class sessions, and there is still reluctance from shy students to participate. In technological courses, classroom sessions in flipped learning require the installation of many software packages together with those tools commonly used by the students. Our objective is to improve these limitations in flipped learning by using an infrastructure implemented to deliver synchronous remote labs. Our study was conducted with 50 students of two different courses. Seven different sessions were delivered following a flipped-classroom approach. In the classroom, the participants used our infrastructure to discuss the different approaches, actively searching for the best solution as a group. Student satisfaction was measured with anonymous questionnaires. In their opinion, the infrastructure facilitates discussions, encourages them to participate and be more critical, and increases the quality of their work, skills, and learning process. They evaluated the system with 4.6 points out of 5.