STRATEGIES TO FLIP A CLASSROOM: LESSONS LEARNT FROM A JOINT-UNIVERSITY PROJECT

Abstract

The flipped classroom approach is widely regarded to be able to enhance teaching and learning. Despite its many advantages, it is still in the early stage of implementation in Hong Kong. This may be due to the potential challenges such as learners’ limited participation and adaptation problems. The purpose of this article is to discuss the challenges based on Brame’s (2013) four key elements of the flipped classroom – exposure, incentive, assess, and activities. Particularly, we put emphasis on how teachers from Hong Kong higher education address the four aspects of challenges in their flipped classroom planning and design. Teachers of twenty-six courses in five universities in Hong Kong were invited to complete a teaching profile for their coming flipped courses which they were asked to elaborate their teaching goals and how they would execute the course. The teaching profiles revealed that the teachers devised a wealth of different strategies in implementing flipped classroom. We generalized their careful planning into eleven tips that can be seen as the collective wisdom of the teachers, as well as potential solutions to the flipped classroom challenges. This article summarizes the first phase of our study that eventually will examine the success factors of the flipped classroom approach in Hong Kong higher education.