Benefits of Active Learning Embedded in Online Content Material Supporting a Flipped Classroom

Abstract

In the traditional flipped classroom paradigm, the course content is delivered online in advance of classroom time, which is reserved for active learning applications. The paradigm does not prescribe the inclusion of active learning in the online content. We examined the impact of embedding quizzes in the online content which required students to immediately apply the lessons' content for problem-solving. Our Medical Electronics course has been structured as a flipped classroom since 2014. In the 2017 offering, video quizzes were embedded in the fourteen online lessons that support the course. Each lesson video quiz comprised 3-5 short problems, formatted as free-response and objective questions. The students were told that simply attempting the quizzes would count for a small percentage of their overall course score. The software used to produce the online video lessons generated worksheets listing the students' responses to the embedded quiz questions scored for correctness. We examined the participation rate of the students in answering the online quiz questions during the semester and their quiz scores. We also investigated the correlations between participation and score on the online quizzes with performance on summative measures of assessment. Last, we compared the rate of online lesson viewing for the student cohort who had access to the video quizzes with the lesson viewing rates of prior cohorts who used the online lessons without embedded quizzes. We found that about 80% of students answered the online quiz questions. Receiving a high score on these questions was positively correlated with good performance on the summative assessment measures (p < 0.01). The inclusion of on-line video quizzes coincided with an increased viewership of the online video lessons that was sustained during the semester in comparison to the lesson viewership observed in prior offerings of the course. We conclude that the inclusion of online quiz questions in the video lessons added an active learning component to the lessons which increased the students' motivation to study the online content. Active learning exercises improves learning of the online lessons in the flipped classroom.