| Abstrakt: |
Higher education has been under pressure recently to transform its teaching methodologies to meet cognitive requirements of today's job market. "Flipping classes" has been proposed as an alternative to traditional teaching to overcome the problem of overwhelming students with information during class time. The aim of this article was to test the effectiveness of flipped classes in content core courses with university students in a blended-learning context. The researchers implemented flipped classes in the English Language and Literature Programme at Arab Open University (AOU), which adopts the Blended Learning (BL) approach as its model of learning. The researchers chose level one and level three courses to test the variables of students' maturity and content complexity at two different branches of AOU. The theoretical basis of this study is Bloom's taxonomy of learning skills. The twist of flipping is to allow students to practice lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) at home on their own and according to their own pace. Then, class time is allocated to higher-order thinking skills (HOTS). Skills of analysis, evaluation, and creation (HOTS) would, therefore, be guided and initiated by the tutor and then practiced by the students with their peers in class. A series of quizzes traces the students' development, allowing researchers to compare their grades to those of students in non-flipped classes. Students' attitudes were measured through a questionnaire. The data collected from these assessment tools have been statistically analyzed, with researchers finding a correlation among level, course, and region. Quantitative findings, though not significantly different, showed that the flipped class experimental groups performed better on their quizzes than the face-to-face (f2f) tutor lecture control groups. Qualitative findings also revealed that the majority of the students in both levels perceived flipped classes as more beneficial and rewarding than traditional f2f lectures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
