An Investigation of Design
Features for Inverted
Classroom Support Technology
Joslenne Pena, Mary Beth Rosson
College of Information Sciences & Technology
The Pennsylvania State University
Introduction
 Technology is changing education
 Instructors are constantly looking for new ways to engage students in an interactive
environment
 Presenting dry material through hands-on activities, active discussion, and problem solving
 The inverted classroom has emerged as an exciting approach to teaching along with
online, hybrid, and blended approaches
 Different types of technologies are used to support it (hardware, software)
Literature Review
 Inverted classroom (flipped, reverse, backwards)
 Lecture happens away from the classroom while homework occurs within [Lage et al, 2001]
 Active learning and student-centered learning [Bishop and Verleger, 2013]
 Handful of studies investigating student perception, student engagement and student
assessment of the inverted classroom [Strayer, 2012]
 Other studies compare traditional vs. non-traditional
 Another set solely devoted to the pedagogical method i.e. content delivery, content
creation, and curriculum development
 Very positive reactions from both instructors and students – only increasing
Literature Review
 Many tasks involved with inverted classroom implementation, therefore, various pieces of
technology are used
 Tasks include video and audio creation, file management, document creation
 The use of certain tools depends on a variety of factors
 Resources available, cost limitations, willingness to learn, time constraints, type of material presented (topic,
curriculum)
 Examples of technology used include
 Camtasia
 PowerPoint
 Adobe Captivate
 Final Cut Pro
 Doceri
Motivation & the gap
 Rise of unconventional teaching methods like the inverted classroom (online, hybrid,
blended) in the world of education, again, only increasing
 Very few studies discuss their rationale behind tools or the design of custom support tools
dedicated to inversion
 One semester implementation – instructors can use anywhere between 3-8 tools and
technologies to aid in various tasks
 MOOCs exist for large online courses, Angel/Blackboard for course management, why not
custom supported tool for inverted?
 How can we make inverted classroom implementation easier and less time consuming?
Research Question
 What are the design features of a tool that best supports the inverted classroom
environment structure?
Methodology
 Theoretical Framework – Activity Theory
[Engestrom, 1990]
 Human actions decomposed into
components
 Understanding the context and actions
surrounding the outcome of an activity
 Complex system with intricate
hierarchical structures
 Special attention paid to the instruments
component
 Fits HCI and education [Hashim and
Jones, 2007]
Methodology
 Interpretive epistemology
 Expand knowledge of the inverted classroom
 Drawing from personal instructors experiences implementing the inverted classroom pedagogy
 Exploring the tools and technologies instructors are using to support this teaching method
 Research design
 Interview-based study of exploratory nature
Methodology
 Examined the inverted classroom
environment through literature and own
interpretation of data
 Components in this activity are aligned
with the many parts of an inverted
classroom structure
Data Collection
 7 semi-structured interviews (35min – 80min)
 Audio recorded and manually transcribed
 Snowball sampling method
 Encourage diversity in discipline and technology use
 Instructor on PSU main campus and have implemented the pedagogy - Main criteria
 Participants were PSU instructors across campus representing 4 colleges
Data Analysis
 Initial coding process guided by Activity Theory
 Second round of coding examined emergent themes not suggested by Activity Theory
but relevant to design
 Using an open coding technique
 Special focus given to the instruments component – representing tools and technology
Findings – instructors as subjects
 All instructors were in STEM related disciplines, which [Gannod et al, 2008] argues best fit the
inverted pedagogy
 Heavy experience teaching and experience with online, hybrid, and blended courses (8-25 years)
 4/7 instructors conduct education research and have an advanced degree in education
 5/7 are women instructors, Lage argues women are more receptive to collaborative
environments such as inverted classroom[Lage et al, 2001]
Findings – the surrounding community
 [Linda] I saw another instructor showcasing their work at an event and I saw all the cool
things they were doing which influenced me to try it out.
 Looking towards their on campus educational community for ideas and innovative teaching
strategies
 [Harold] {Another colleague} has been really good to me.
 Here, Harold talks about his very positive experience with one senior-level colleague. This
colleague, over the years, has been extremely supportive of his various teaching strategies
including the inverted classroom
Findings – inverted classroom as object
 [Michelle] It allows me to cater material to different people at different times. There is
more room to cover technical content and meet the needs of students.
 [Tara] …the thing that I think is the sweet spot is to make the connection for the student.
They are learning and they don’t even know they are learning, they are more engaged in
the learning process.
 [Nicole] I definitely prefer flipped, I mean, the online, as you can imagine-very separated
from the students, I don’t know what they look like, yeah… I don’t like it. Somehow with
the flipped course they feel like I’m on their side.
 Here Michelle, Tara, and Nicole discuss the positive experiences they had using the inverted
model
Findings – inverted classroom as object
 [Linda] Yeah I almost got fired. I had students really angry, saying they didn’t learn
anything. It was extremely frustrating.
 [Joe] The concept works great if the student is participating and buying into it… it’s a
perfectly valid concept, the problem is that students are not that self-directed.
 [Joe] Automating a bad process just makes a bad process more efficient… the bad thing
is if you didn’t sign up for that, “I didn’t ask to be indoctrinated into a certain way of
thinking”.
 Joe and Linda discuss their negative experiences. Linda tried the model once but decided to
give it another shot after almost being fired and ended up with a positive experience. In contrast,
Joe tried the model but decided to disregard it, as he found it does not work
Findings – technology and tools as
instruments
 [Harold] I have already expressed my displeasure about the replacement of Angel, yeah
but Angel sucks, yeah but I’ve already learned it, we are all gonna be lost. I know what it
takes to break technology. I keep separate excel workbooks, I don’t trust Angel.
 [Tara] Angel sucks! There’s not that many other tools to use, I put a syllabus and readings
and assignments and I use it because it’s within the system.
 [Nicole] Yeah, Angel is totally, it’s dinosaur-ish, I have thought about using yammer. I
spend a lot of time in the summer with my kids, so if I’m sitting there and I got my phone
and someone pings me a question in yammer I can answer it, I can’t do that through
Angel, it’s not intuitive.
 [Joe] I use Angel as mostly a communication tool, emails, and announcements. TAs and
LAs assist with answering questions online.
 Here, Harold, Tara, Nicole, and Joe talk about their use of Angel (CMS). Most of them see Angel in
a negative light because of its usability, learnability, and functionality. There are also talks at PSU
about replacing Angel which is affecting how they see it.
Findings – technology and tools as
instruments
 [Tara] I think that when you leverage these tools there is an approach-ability that they have to
it… they find it more accessible and more current… they create a tiny more sense of
community.
 [Tara] I think a baseline system that has functionality in it, basic tools that everyone can use but
do not restrict people
 [Joe] I use a peer review submission that I wrote because Angel doesn't have anything useful.
 [Nicole] the user should have some preferences, I don’t want this or that, there’s so much on
Angel… why are we not including mobile instead we tell students to put it away?
 [Nicole] the technology piece that I have really been looking for, videos in 10-15min chunks,
you should have questions dispersed throughout the video or after a 10minute video, and you
test for understanding… i don’t think the videos are interactive enough… I’ve thought about
using clickers in class.
 Here Tara, Joe, Nicole discuss their use of other tools besides Angel to support inversion. Furthermore,
they suggest features or requirements for a technology that can be designed to support inversion, or in
many cases, is better than Angel.
Discussion
 Design implications
 Did not find extremely specific and detailed features
 Angel (CMS) constantly used as a benchmark, mostly seen negatively
 Value convenience, functionality, customization, cross-compatibility, and flexibility
 Instructors carry the “As long as it works” attitude
 Limit Angel usage to pursue other options for tools, spending more time on various tasks
Discussion
 Theoretical implications
 Broad and basic application of Activity Theory , interested in one component
 Actions surrounding the inverted classroom are numerous and complex
 Instruments play a role in shifting effectiveness and outcome of activity which for the purposes
of this study is learning
 Community does have an influence over subjects and tools
 Rules implemented by an instructor affect student interaction with content and instruments
 Contradictions between these components create tensional relationships
Conclusion
 The inverted classroom is a very complex activity with many aspects
 Instructors are using a variety of technologies to assist them in their inverted
implementations
 Perhaps the model best suits computing disciplines
 Although we did not get as detailed design features as expected, basic thoughts did arise
 Build a tool that is responsive
 Cross-compatibility
 Customized choices (instructors may enable or disable components)
 Personalization
 Better Angel? (using a CMS structure as a template)
Limitations
 Time constraints
 Participants contacted us after data collection phase (will be considered for next phase in study)
 Bigger sample size desired
 Absence of triangulation
 Generalizations to other populations cannot be made
 Inverted implementations are unique to every instructor
Future Work
 Same study on a larger scale with multiple data sources (observation, focus groups)
 Quantitative study involving surveys or questionnaires
 Mixed methods approach
 Design-based research with low-fidelity prototype development, usability testing and use
cases
 Iterative design process of prototype through agile methods
 Thorough content analysis of literature
 Study on liberal arts/humanities instructors?
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