Relationships in the Flipped Classroom

Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of flipped classrooms in chemistry, and identifies relationships as a major factor impacting the success of flipped instruction methods. Examination of student interview data reveals factors that affect the development of peer-peer, peer-peer leader, and peer-expert relationships in first-year general chemistry and second-year organic chemistry flipped classrooms. Success was measured in terms of student perceptions of the effectiveness of the instruction, as well as student academic development. Furthermore, analysis of research participant interviews reveals that academic reading circles, open-response multiple-attempt group quizzes, and peer leaders are important elements of a text-centric flipped approach at a small-classroom, commuter-campus university. Student reflections and classroom observations provide further support for these conclusions. Cet étude examine l’efficacité des salles de classe inversées en chimie et identifie la création de liens en tant que facteur important qui affecte la réussite des méthodes d’instruction inversée. L’examen des données provenant d’entrevues avec les étudiants révèle les facteurs qui affectent le développement des rapports d’étudiant à étudiant, d’étudiant à leader et d’étudiant à expert dans un cours inversé de chimie générale de première année et dans un cours de chimie organique de deuxième année. La réussite a été mesurée en termes de perceptions des étudiants de l’efficacité de l’instruction, ainsi que du développement académique des étudiants. De plus, l’analyse des entrevues des participants à la recherche révèle que les cercles de lecture universitaires, les tests de groupes à essais multiples et à réponses ouvertes, ainsi que les leaders de groupes sont des éléments importants d’une approche inversée centrée sur un texte en petite salle de classe, dans une université de banlieusards. Les réflexions des étudiants et les observations en salle de classe soutiennent également ces conclusions.

Emergence of Different Perspectives of Success in Collaborative Learning

“…Phenomenography, a research framework that explores the outcome space of possible ways that a phenomenon can be experienced by participants, is appropriate for this type of study (Marton, 1981). Prior examples of our use of phenomenographic analysis in chemistry education can be found elsewhere McCollum et al, 2017;Skagen et al, 2018).…”

“…Additionally, the disparate learning activities of their local classrooms shaped how team members experienced the collaborative learning, and hence influenced their reflections. Details on collaborative methods used in the Site 1 and Site 2 classrooms are reported elsewhere (McCollum, 2016;McCollum, Fleming, Plotnikoff & Skagen, 2017;Morsch, 2016;Skagen et al, 2018). In the collaborative learning experiences at Site 1 and Site 2, student partners were required to arrange a weekly time to video chat online in order to complete a collaborative assignment.…”

Overcoming Barriers for Implementing International Online Collaborative Assignments in Chemistry

“…By collecting data that represents the student voice, until saturation is achieved, we can generate the associated outcome space (Åkerlind, Bowden, & Green, 2005;Andretta, 2007;Booth, 1997). Examples of phenomenographic analysis in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) / chemistry education research can be found elsewhere (McCollum, Sepulveda, & Moreno, 2016;McCollum, Fleming, Plotnikoff, & Skagen, 2017;Skagen et al, 2018).…”

“…Pre-lecture resources can reduce in-lecture cognitive load and diminish differences in achievement between students with prior knowledge of chemistry compared to students lacking this prior knowledge (Seery & Donnelly, 2012). Both classrooms in this study employed variations on flipped pedagogy as described elsewhere (McCollum, 2016;McCollum et al, 2017;Morsch, 2016;Morsch & Lewis, 2015).…”

“…Other classroom interventions included 15-minute academic reading circles (ARCs) at the start of class (Daniels, 2002;Seburn, 2015;Shelton-Strong, 2012), iClicker questions during class, and open-response multiple-attempt (ORMA) group quizzes (McCollum, 2016). More in-depth information on the Canadian classroom pedagogy is reported elsewhere (McCollum et al, 2017).…”