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Flipping h-e-l! What’s next?
Conference paper   Open access   Peer reviewed

Flipping h-e-l! What’s next?

Terry Lucke, Peter K Dunn and Ulrike Keyssner
Proceedings of the 2013 AAEE Conference, pp.1-11
Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE) Annual Conference, 2013 (Gold Coast, Australia, 08-Dec-2013–11-Dec-2013)
Australasian Association for Engineering Education
2013
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http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/australasian-association-engineering-education/2013-annual-conferenceView
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Abstract

Curriculum and Pedagogy classroom response systems student engagement Top Hat flipped classroom hand-e-lecture
BACKGROUND: This case study explores the use of a new, low-cost, state-of-the-art classroom response system (Top Hat) which allows students to use their mobile devices (phones, tablets, laptops) to respond to a variety of numerical, multiple-choice, short-answer and open-ended discussion questions posed during face-to-face workshops. In order to allow sufficient time to fully engage with the workshop activities traditional lecture were revised and the lecture materials were "flipped". Students worked through narrated flipped lecture material (hand-e-lectures) online, prior to attending the workshops. This allowed students to become acquainted with the fundamental theory at home, at their own pace, before attending the face-to-face workshops. The theory was extended in the workshops by including a variety of carefully designed, engaging activities (many were group activities) that used classroom response system (CRS) questions to facilitate discussions, problem solving and case study analysis to enhance student cognition. PURPOSE: This study examines the effectiveness of flipping lecture material to enable students to become more familiar and comfortable with fundamental theory before scaffolding and extending the learning in the workshops by making use of well designed and engaging CRS activities. DESIGN/METHOD: This case study involved redesigning and flipping a traditional 3rd year engineering Fluid Mechanics course in order to increase student engagement and improve student learning outcomes. Students worked through narrated hand-e-lectures (h-e-l) at home each week before attending the workshops. In order to encourage students to utilise and engage with the hand-e-lectures, a number of graded CRS questions were included as part of the online h-e-l content. A range of evaluation methods were used to gauge the effectiveness of the new teaching format. RESULTS: A significant increase in the levels of student engagement was observed during the new workshops. Eighty-nine percent of students surveyed (n=37) thought that the new h-e-l and workshop format was better than the typical teaching format used at USC, and 90% (n=38) thought that the new hand-electure and Workshop format had helped them to better understand the course material. However, the increased levels of engagement did not appear to produce any significant improvement in students' final grades. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the new flipped lecture and CRS teaching format demonstrated a substantial increase in the level of student engagement, motivation and attendance compared to previous cohorts. Generally, students' perception of the effectiveness of using the new teaching format was overwhelmingly positive. The study in ongoing and it is expected that as more data becomes available, this will allow a more comprehensive analysis to be undertaken on the pedagogical benefits of this new teaching approach.

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