The Flipped Classroom

A first year introductory internet and digital media module, taught as an in- and out-service across two Schools and covering a wide range of music courses, resulted in attendance and completion problems on a yearly basis. Students ranged from technical/programmers through to musicians and performers. Keeping them all engaged, motivated and appreciative of the learning materials was a challenge. The Flipped Classroom approach of front-loading weekly learning materials on to the VLE and providing more time for structured tutorial and computer lab work provided a distinct improvement in student marks and satisfaction scores. This Chapter assesses student marks against attendance and VLE engagement from this approach over one academic year.
The learning materials provided a broad richness of weekly-themed resources including: screencasts; text; PowerPoint slides; screencasts of slideshows; scholarly articles; blog posts; web articles; and embedded YouTube videos. Students were encouraged to read broadly and assimilate as much as possible from the varying formats of presentation whilst having weekly structured tutorial content. The weekly content creation / linkages were designed to provide additional materials for those on the technical spectrum and additional content for the creatives.
Student marks are compared against attendance and also against VLE engagement over the year. Whilst both indicate a benefit with increasing attendance and VLE engagement, there is a greater parity with the latter – attendance in class is less important than perusing the weekly resources. Students were able to perform to first class standards whilst engaging fully with the VLE and having a less-than 50% attendance in class. A broad section of students engaged with materials before the weekly lab sessions and some engaged with hardly any tutorial work at all. VLE access data also shows many students engaged to the early hours of the morning.
The Flipped Classroom approach resulted in a better module results as well as an improved classroom experience: greater focus on the learning materials and tutorial exercises; much less time surfing and social networking in class; and more time in class for one-to-one assistance.