Flipping the class – University chemistry students’ experiences from a new teaching and learning approach

Abstract

University chemistry courses have for a long time had a similar conventional approach to teaching, with chemistry professors lecturing in a traditional manner. Today, flipped learning approaches have found their ways into higher education with positive results. In particular, US innovations in this area have made positive impressions on Swedish university chemistry educators, resulting in an interest and curiosity in integrating a flipped model into the course curricula. The rationale behind flipped learning is to incorporate an active learning approach into lecture, thereby increasing both student engagement and learning outcomes. In this paper, an implementation project where an organic chemistry course has changed focus from traditional teaching to flipped learning, will be presented. The focus in this mixed-methods study will be on students’ cognitive and affective responses when meeting a new teaching and learning approach. Through following a project where a conventional approach to an organic chemistry course is changed into a more student-active focus, we elaborate on implications for course development of chemistry curricula.

Flipping the Classroom for Optimizing Undergraduate Students’ Motivation and Understanding of Medical Physics Concepts

“…Unlike traditional lectures, the flipped classroom allows students to devote out of class time to plan and build up their own lessons to be ready for classroom discussion. The results of this study corroborate the findings of numerous researches such as Al-Shabibi and Al-Ayasra (2019), Broman and Johnels (2019), Lage, Platt, and Treglia (2000), Sergis et al (2018). Besides, the academic performance of students has also been observed due to action activity which is essential for fostering thinking (Obeidat & Abu Al-Sameed, 2007;Plump & LaRosa, 2017).…”

“…Peer-to-peer interaction is also enhanced with increased opportunities as they have healthy discussions with their classmates and converse in the language in which they feel stress-free and comfortable. These findings lend support to (Broman & Johnels, 2019;Su & Chen, 2018, Tütüncü & Aksu, 2018. This learner-centered approach allows students to play an active role in learning and develop autonomy and positive attitudes towards understanding the subject matter.…”

“…To address the above-mentioned problems, we tried to implement the flipped classroom as an innovative blended active learning approach to help students deepen their understating of physics medical concepts and boost up their motivation. This approach seems to develop students' autonomy, inquisition, responsibility for learning, adequate research skills, critical thinking and problem-solving activities Broman & Johnels, 2019;Lundin et al 2018;Seery, 2015;Tütüncü & Aksu, 2018). In this model, teachers provide students with handouts and video-recorded lectures selected from the program as learning resources, and students are required to study them before their scheduled lectures to be ready for active classroom discussion.…”

“…Villalba, Castilla, and Redondo-Duarte (2018) also stress the need for a crucial debate on the future of education and the provision of innovative methods for motivating students to learn through effective ways. Today, one of the most researched methodologies in higher education is the flipped classroom (Broman & Johnels, 2019;Lundin et al 2018;Seery, 2015;Tütüncü & Aksu, 2018).…”

“…Over again, Liu and Wenzhong (2019) showed that students held positive perceptions and preferred to have flipped classrooms in their future learning. Likewise, Broman and Johnels (2019) revealed that students preferred flipped learning for five desired learning characteristics: timely guidance and feedback, clarity and detail, flexibility of instruction, application of concepts and cognitive engagement. In sum, all these studies recommended the use of flipped learning because of its multifaceted benefits.…”