Student perceptions of the Flipped Classroom

The Flipped Classroom is an instructional strategy that can provide educators with a way of minimizing the amount of direct-instruction in their teaching practice while maximizing one-to-one interaction. This strategy leverages technology providing additional supporting instructional material for students that can be accessed online. This frees up classroom time that had previously been used for lecturing. Students in three high school math classrooms where instruction was “flipped” were surveyed to examine their perceptions of the Flipped Classroom and to assess the role social media, educational technology, mastery learning, and self-pacing played in Flipped Classroom environments. The survey also addressed how the Flipped Classroom could support student learning and what could be done to improve Flipped Classroom implementations. The survey utilized both qualitative and quantitative research measures which provided a broader understanding of how students responded as a group and as individuals. The results revealed three major findings: students are doing less homework in a Flipped Classroom than in a traditional lecture-based classroom, students enjoyed learning in a Flipped Classroom environment, and students benefited from watching their lectures in condensed lesson videos. This research has implications for instructional delivery in 21st century classrooms. The findings of this study illustrate that technology can provide a self-paced instructional setting that can effectively support mastery learning for students. Additionally, educators who use the Flipped Classroom can add additional supporting elements like assessment for learning, problem-based inquiry, strategies for differentiation, and can create, overall, an environment for instruction that is more flexible than traditional classroom settings. Recommendations that emerged from the findings for improving Flipped Classroom implementation included: interactive instructional videos, increased in-class learning activities, and alterations to assessment.