A flipped classroom in Thailand

Comparing achievement in an economics classroom

The flipped classroom is a new teaching method that reverses the traditional homework model. In the flipped classroom, students watch video as homework and then use valuable class time to complete assignments when teachers are available to provide one-on-one assistance and discuss deeper into a concept.

The beginning of this innovative process was created by Mr. Jonathan Bergmann and Mr. Aaron Sams, Science teachers from Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Colorado.

The Administrators of Bangkok Christian College (BCC), one of the oldest private school in Thailand, have a vision on various teaching methods for students in the 21^st century. They hope that the flipped classroom allows students to create knowledge construction and get more benefits on “Mastery Learning”. BCC’s teachers tried to set up a research team in each class.

I, Supanya Khienjarern, teach Thai Social Studies in Grade 6 at BCC. I applied the flipped classroom to “Economics in Everyday Life” for students to realize that economics is close to us and involves in decision in everyday life.

Thailand’s 2011 floods spur need for alternative classrooms

People could not go to work or school because of the floods. But with a flipped classroom, teachers could create lesson plans from home and share them with the students, and the students could learn from home.

Creating video resources for students

I made a video that focus on critical thinking and analysis in the following topics:-

1. Introduction
2. Instruction for using video
3. Objectives
4. The student tasks
5. Story and Illustration
6. Lesson exercises

Process of making the flipped classroom video has 6 steps.

1. Design for teaching and learning.
2. Preparation of contents
3. Media P roduction
4. Import the media to follow the steps and teaching process.
5. Feedback and questions further.
6. Measurement and Evaluation

(These above steps was translated from the book “Teacher to Students, Creating Flipped Classroom” of Professor Doctor Wicharn Panich)

Assessing the success of a flipped classroom

The flipped classroom allows students to study at home and back to school activities, preparing the questions to discuss in class with their teacher. This method can fulfill the needs of different learning level of children. Besides, it succeeds in the way of teaching and also creates a positive attitude towards learning in social studies. Sometimes, it may support to sudden situations such as disasters or political issues.

The following quasi-experimental research made to compare the academic achievement about “Basic Concept of Economics” between the class 6/9 and 6/10 of BCC. I taught Economics to students in class 6/9 (as a control group) by regular teaching in the classroom while using the method of flipped classroom video to class 6/10 (as an experiment group).

The schedule of the results of the comparative achievement.

Note: Group 1 a year. 6/10 (experimental group) Group 2 a year. 6/9 (control group).

The table showed that students in class 6/10 who learned from video at home got average scores at 17.19, higher than students in class 6/9 who learned in the classroom got average scores at 13.75. To compare the outcomes of the study found that there were different level of statistical significance at 0.01 between regular learning in the classroom and using the flipped classroom method (using video media).

Here are some of the students studying in the flipped classroom model:

[satellite gallery=1]

For the Attitude, I found that class 6/10 students who studied from video media had a very high level of satisfaction.

Finally, I hope that this method of teaching, the flipped classroom, may inspire all teachers to develop better idea for their students.