General Information
- Instructor: Prof. Lolita EDRALIN
- Department: School of Accounting and Finance
- Subject: AF5113 Accounting for Strategic Management
- Class Size: Two classes of 45 students each
- Students: Master's students
Why Use the Flipped Classroom Approach?
Lolita was intrigued by the concept of flipped learning, where students engage in pre-class learning by watching recorded lectures from their teachers and then participating in classroom discussions on the topic. She audited a class taught by her colleague with a flipped learning approach once and saw the benefits of using a flipped classroom. She also realized the challenges faced by flipped learning and became inspired to try to adopt a partial flip approach in her classes.
Implementation Steps
While Lolita recognizes the importance of preparation and interaction in the learning process, she has reservations about the practicality of a fully flipped classroom approach, particularly when it comes to the demand for the students’ time. Therefore, she decides to adopt a partial flip approach. In this modified approach, students are required to watch short videos and/or read some articles before attending class. She will then allocate a third of the class time for group discussions and presentations relating to the videos/articles.
Preparation of materials
For example, in the strategic management course to discuss performance measures, Lolita selected a real-life company and found three short Youtube videos of 3 to 7 minutes each about the company’s rise and fall. In addition, she provided two short articles relating to the company’s business performance.
Pre-class activity
Students are required to watch the YouTube videos and read the short articles before class. To provide students with a purpose and help them exercise critical thinking, she asks them to answer a set of relevant questions and to post the answers on the Blackboard discussions forum as homework.
On a selective basis, the "Flipped classroom" homework will be labeled as mandatory homework and all students must complete it before class as they are critical to the class discussions. Some homework is optional, and students are encouraged to complete but is not a pre-requisite for the upcoming class discussions as the topic can be picked up during the class lecture. So, students are not burdened with homework every week and tend to spend quality time on the selective mandatory homework.
In-class activity
Lolita would start the class with a traditional lecture on the conceptual framework of the subject matter, then move on to the group discussion of the homework to apply the concepts. Each group selects a representative to present their discussion results in 1 to 2 minute presentations. Lolita utilizes online tools such as Class Point to display their answers to the entire class. Following the presentations, feedback is provided leading to further debate and discussion.
What Impact Did This Have on Student Learning?
By adopting a partially flipped approach, more in-class time is dedicated to interactive activities such as group discussions and presentations. This provides students with the opportunity to engage deeply with the topic and interact with their peers. Through these activities, students can gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter and benefit from increased engagement and interaction.
This approach was very much appreciated by students with positive feedback in the eSFQ question regarding what they liked about the course. Students give comments such as: “The method of teaching is very interesting”; “The vivid demonstration of the theory and abundant media materials to support my understanding”; “Interactive teaching forms”; “Critical thinking and analysis from different perspectives”; etc.
What Are the Good Practices That Can Be Learnt from This Case?
Using partially flipped approach
Lolita acknowledges the challenge of some students not having much time to prepare for class, which can impact their learning experience. In response, she decided to try partially flipping the classroom which allowed her to devote some time for lecturing, and also encouraged students’ self- and group-learning. This approach provides both students who like traditional lecturing style and those self-directed learners a learning flexibility, they can adjust their learning strategies accordingly.
Selecting interesting and light learning materials
Instead of using traditional lecture videos and handouts, she opts for concise, fun-to-watch videos and engaging reading materials that are closely related to real-life companies. This approach helps make the pre-class learning experience more enjoyable and relatable, encouraging active student participation.
Rewarding pre-class preparation
Lolita motivates students to prepare before class by seeking and rewarding proof of work. She requires students to answer some simple relevant questions from the pre-work and to submit them on the Blackboard Discussion Forum. Each submission earns them one class participation mark.
Motivating students to actively engage with the class activities
During class, Lolita creates a supportive environment by allowing students to take turns presenting their work with the entire class. She always walks around the classroom, offering assistance to the groups that need help. She also takes note of which students have presented and tells those who haven’t done so that they will be the next to present in the coming topic. This approach ensures that every student in the group can present at least once. As a result of positive group experiences, students gain confidence and overcome any fear associated with presenting in front of their peers. She also rewards the presenter with one class participation mark.
Incorporating technology in the classroom
A synchronous Classroom Response System called ClassPoint has been used in Lolita’s class. This interactive teaching add-in seamlessly integrates with PowerPoint and enables students to participate in quizzes or games using their smartphones or computer-based devices. It provides greater student-instructor interaction and engagement during class.
Making use of GenAI to enhance learning and teaching
At the end of every lecture section, Lolita sets five multiple-choice questions to solidify students’ learning. To diversify the question pool, she leverages the power of Gen AI to generate ten questions and carefully selects five from the generated set. Similarly, She also encourages her students to incorporate Gen AI and ChatGPT into their homework assignments. This not only fosters critical thinking skills but also facilitates an understanding of how to effectively utilize AI while recognizing its limitations.
What Were the Challenges Encountered During the Implementation and What Solutions Were Used?
Student motivation and time management
One of the key challenges of a flipped classroom, even if only partially flipped, is that students do not prepare for class and the discussions become mooted as the group does not have enough background information to discuss. To ensure students prepare, Lolita asks students to answer some discussion questions and post them to the Blackboard. This allows the instructor to read through the submissions before class to gauge the level of understanding and the percentage of students who are ready. If the percentage is high, she has high confidence that the group discussions will be fruitful. If it is low, then more background information is provided before the group discussions start to ensure all students are engaged.
Silent class
Students in Hong Kong and China tend to be shy and hesitate to take the risk of speaking publicly. Lolita helped them gain confidence by making them ready using the following approaches:
- Pre-class exercises have some of the questions to be discussed, thus they already had time to think about the discussion points when they do the mandatory homework
- The students get a warmup time by sharing their answers with the groupmates and arriving at a consensus answer
- Students are asked to appoint a presenter among themselves, but that all members must ultimately present at least once in the 13 week session. So, the less shy ones will start first and the shy ones has time to gather courage over the next few weeks.
- Lolita goes around each group to get the names of the presenter before presentation starts. This has the double benefit of getting the presenter mentally prepared as well as avoiding dead air when nobody in the group is willing to present.
- The presenter is required to share the group consensus answer using Classpoint via a QR code. This gives the presenter confidence in presenting as he/she can read the script that is flashed on the screen.
Reward mechanism
Class participation represents 5% of the total assessment. To encourage students to post their homework on the blackboard and to present their work in class, class participation marks will be awarded for each effort made. Students are required to log 24 participation marks, which could include homework submissions or presentations in class.
