The Paradox of the Flipped Classroom: One Method, Many Intentions

Abstract

The Flipped Classroom is a teaching model where content attainment is shifted forward to outside of class, to be followed up by the teacher in class. In Sweden this way of teaching has become very popular during recent years. But what is gained by this way of teaching? Research on the Flipped Classroom in the context of the Swedish High School system is close to non-existent; why studies within this field are of great importance. In order to find appropriate informants, an electronic survey was constructed. Informants matching the selection criteria were then selected for qualitative interviews. In total nine informants agreed to participate in interviews (semi-structured) to describe their experiences from flipping their own classrooms. The informants reported that the transition from more conventional ways of teaching to using the Flipped Classroom entailed major changes. The informants pointed out that the process of moving away from the more conventional way of teaching improved their teaching. All of the informants expressed they all used the Flipped Classroom methodology but they all did it with different goals in mind and their approach varied a lot. By using the same terminology, it might seem that they worked with the Flipped Classroom in similar ways, but the results show they did not. Herein lies the problem: Teachers say they flip their classrooms, which they do, but they do not share the same goals or approaches, just the term: The Flipped Classroom. Keywords: flipped classroom, flipped education, qualitative interviews, teaching methodology.

The Effective Integration of Flipped Classroom in ELT Contexts: A Review of Recent Literature

“…), the management and collection of external resources, the assignment of different tasks, having the crucial feature of easy-to-use functionalities for online communication, discussion, cooperation, and feedback (Koch et al 2018). Besides facing operational difficulties in the application of these platforms of support in the flipped approach, another difficulty was demonstrated by Backlund and Hugo (2018); in their research in Sweden; they investigated the teachers' conceptions who develop and design pedagogical actions using the flipped approach. As a result, they revealed a diversity of concepts about who is being "inverted classroom."…”

“…Moreover, Hu (2018) clarified that unlike the previous teaching models, which focus on the content of the lecture given to students, the flipped classroom model emphasized the quality of learned content, how much the students have learned, and the strategies students apply to solve the problems themselves. Also, Backlund & Hugo (2018) added that the transition from traditional modes of teaching/learning toward applying the flipped classroom methodology had created numerous changes. The microlectures and teaching instructions had to be transformed into activities that occur outside of the class, which results in students' attendance in class time better prepared.…”

High school student perspectives on flipped classroom learning

“…A good general review of current flipped classroom research can be found in Bäcklund and Hugo (2018). In the following, we briefly touch upon the literature in the areas of the flipped university classroom as well as flipped high school and elementary school classrooms.…”

“…A main finding in this practice was that the activity in class was more important than the details of the video. Bäcklund and Hugo (2018) interviewed Swedish upper secondary school teachers (not students) and found that research conducted on the Flipped Classroom in the context of the Swedish high school system is close to non-existent. Even when examining international literature on the Flipped Classroom .…”

“…In Sweden, some teachers see a benefit of using interactive learning and a flipped classroom as a learning design or part of their teaching (Bäcklund and Hugo 2018). Recent studies indicate different levels of positive progress in learning using flipped classroom (Love et al 2013;Mattis 2015 ;Sahin, Cavlazoglu, and Ynus 2014).…”