Making ‘The Flip’ work: Barriers to and implementation strategies for introducing Flipped Teaching methods into traditional Higher Education courses

Abstract

This article describes strategies used by the author to introduce a flipped teaching approach into a traditional course taught at a UK higher education institution. Traditional live lectures are replaced by video screencasts to be viewed outside the classroom by the students. Lecturer–student contact time is used for interactive workshop activities aimed at facilitating deeper conceptual understanding of the subject material. Changing to a flipped student-centric approach from the more traditional lecturer-centric approach can be challenging for both student and lecturer alike. This article describes such an attempt in modules for 2nd and 4th Year chemistry undergraduates. Student surveys show that the vast majority of students are quite positive about the flipped approach and prefer it to the traditional delivery. Based on the receptive nature of the student response and the greater opportunity for developing higher learning skills afforded by this approach, we believe it should be more widely adopted in the teaching of the physical sciences
in UK higher education.