In the next ten years, the shape of universities will change dramatically; it is necessary and inevitable. It is not just about grades anymore. Learning communities are important. Moreover, it is important for students to learn the tools in school that they would need on the job.

One such tool is Flipped Learning. Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instructional moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter (the official definition of FLIP learning). Alternatively, just put a flipped classroom is a pedagogical model in which the typical lecture and homework elements of a course are reversed.

So how does a Flipped classroom work? A standard template that universities use is as follows; students might watch multiple lecture videos that are five to six minutes long. This model is followed by quick quizzes to assess the understanding of the student. Moreover, more broad applications are completed in class. Flipped classroom has immense protentional to revolutionize the way students learn. The university system as it is known today has functioned the same way since its inception in the late 19th and early 20th century – through in-class lectures, followed by homework and multiple choice questions and other test questions. This way of learning needs to be adapted to accommodate the changes in technology and jobs in the 21st century.

The value of a flipped class is in the repurposing of class time into a workshop where students can inquire about lecture content, test their skills in applying knowledge, and interact with one another in hands-on activities. During class sessions, instructors function as coaches or advisors, encouraging students in individual inquiry and collaborative effort.” (Educause Feb 2012).

Why is Flipped Learning significant? In essence, the use of pre-recorded media for students to learn outside of class gives the students control of the lecture. They can watch, rewind, and fast-forward as needed at their pace. The use of media has the added benefit of being better suited for students with hearing disabilities. Furthermore, this way of learning allows for class time to be devoted to the application of concepts and might give instructors a better opportunity to detect errors in thinking. Something that could become a necessary procedure in ensuring students properly understand the concept they are learning.

The future applications of Flipped Learning are mindboggling, but it will not all be smooth sailing. Creating “an effective flip requires careful preparation” (Educause Feb 2012). Recording lectures require extra time and effort by the faculty and students will need to be properly motivated and taught how to take advantage of this way of learning. Furthermore, students may complain about not having a face-to-face lecture. Students will need to get used to the flip class way of learning before they can fully accept how useful a tool it is.

While Flipped Learning is yet to be fully embraced, its future applications would highly benefit from some of the cutting-edge technology being developed today. Namely, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are among the top technologies currently being drawn up for a wide variety of applications. This can, in theory, be applied to Flipped Learning. In that, a VR/AR application could be used to visually explain the working of the motor to an engineering student. All from the comfort of his dorm room.

Flipped learning in India: Flipped learning would do wonders for the Indian education system with the low teacher-student ratio, 28:1 in primary school and 30:1 in secondary school (Srivastava, Kanchan. “Pupil-teacher Ratio.” DNA. DNA India, 11 Sept. 2015. Web. 27 June 2017). Compared to the UK, 20.8:1 in primary school and 15.7:1 in secondary school “Pupil/Teacher Ratio in the UK.” Statista. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 June 2017).

Indian School of Business (ISB) is the first Indian business school to experiment with Flipped learning. Towards the end of 2013, ISB began using a technology called “Creatist” that used to deliver Flipped learning to large classes. Creatist technology is developed by Career Aces as an active learning enterprise tool. Here is a short video that shows the technology in action – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUbE7Lc09lM. SP Jain Institute of Management and Research (SPJIMR) another leading Indian business school has introduced Flipped learning for some of its courses. IIT Bombay too experimented with this model for one of their courses. You can read more about it here:  Flipped Classrooms are More Efficient, Says Study by IIT-B Researchers

This model has enormous potential for use in colleges and universities in India. The only thing holding this back is poor internet connectivity.

Flipped learning necessitates a role change for both students and teachers. The flipped way of learning gives students more responsibilities while also giving them more flexibility to experiment and further their understanding. This way of learning has already begun cropping up for limited courses in American universities. Hopefully, it will soon gain the attention of more institutes in India.

At IIMB, we are constantly trying to explore the possibilities of flipped learning and our faculty too are implementing it. As an effort to enable more educators to take up to this form of learning we frequently conduct “Faculty Development Programmes” on using MOOCs in a blended format.

[To know more about Flipped Learning, please visit, http://bit.ly/2rPbWLQ]

Apart from Flipped Learning there are many more tools and Future of Learning Conference at IIMB is one place you can get information about it.

IIM Bangalore, in collaboration with IIT Bombay, is proud to organize this annual conference on the ‘Future of Learning.’ which aims to bring leaders of higher educational institutions, educational policy makers, practitioners and L&D Technology providers on a single platform and provoke thought, showcase innovation and share knowledge along three dimensions of the future of learning: Pedagogy, Policy and Technology. Registration to the conference is now open. Please visit http://www.futureoflearningconference.com/ for more information.

[This blog post was written by Maanav Setlur, Intern, IIMBx ]

 

 


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