Examining Faculty Attitudes and Strategies that Support Successful Flipped Teaching

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Flipped teaching is an educational approach that shifts lectures from class time to out of class, by using other formats such as online video. This change frees up class time for students to deepen their understanding through activities such as team problem-solving, working with real-world data, and group discussions. Despite growing evidence that active learning in flipped classrooms can increase student learning and motivation, some faculty members have resisted this approach. The resistance is due in part to lack of awareness about how to flip a course and concerns about having enough time to prepare effective course materials. This project will help address barriers to using a flipped class format by supporting cohorts of faculty at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and St. Louis Community College to develop and implement new flipped courses across multiple STEM departments. Results obtained from research on project activities will provide information about what is needed for broad implementation of flipped courses, across different STEM departments, and at different types of institutions. Successful implementation of flipped teaching by 24 faculty members over the three years of the project is expected to improve retention and success in STEM, including retention of students who are from historically underrepresented groups. Through rigorous research, the project will examine faculty perceptions, attitudes, and intentions about flipping their classrooms. The project's three overarching research goals are: 1) How do faculty perceive and implement flipped teaching? 2) How does faculty implementation of flipped teaching at a four-year master's university compare with faculty implementation at a two-year community college? and, 3) What are the essential design principles for implementing a successful flipped classroom at each type of institution? Six faculty from the community college and six from the university will receive professional development in flipped teaching and create pre-class assignments, in-class activities, and learning assessments. The professional development is expected to increase faculty confidence and skills in flipped teaching, enabling them to serve as mentors to other faculty in the future. A robust set of quantitative and qualitative data derived from surveys and interviews will enable the project team to determine faculty decision-making during course redesign and their perceptions of implementing the new teaching model, identify factors that support and hinder implementation of flipped teaching, and explore which factors are common to both institutions and which are specific to institutional type. The research team will use descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze pre/post surveys and thematic coding techniques to examine data from the interview transcripts. Additionally, the team will examine student grades and course completion rates, as well as student perceptions of the flipped teaching experience.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.