Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 86

Internet Learning
Developing a Community of Practice (CoP) through
Interdisciplinary Research on Flipped Classrooms
Bobbie Seyedmonir, Kevin Barry, Mehdi Seyedmonir A
This article describes an interdisciplinary research project that resulted from
the creation of a community of practice (CoP) for faculty teaching blended and
online courses at a small, historically black university. Using a flipped-classroom
approach, two modules of a Principles of Biology course were redesigned.
Already-created PowerPoints were converted to screencasts and homework
was completed in small groups during class. Results showed that students in the
flipped classroom performed better on application-type questions but showed
no difference on overall test scores or on knowledge-type questions. A survey of
student perceptions found that students liked the autonomy to watch content
videos anytime, anywhere, and that they enjoyed the more active classroom
experience. Students also noted that technical issues sometimes hindered their
ability to learn; they missed the opportunity to ask questions in real time; and
they did not appreciate the amount of out-of-class work this approach required.
Overall, the results indicate that the flipped-classroom model has the potential
to increase student learning but that it requires a more thoughtful redesign
process than is suggested in popular literature on the subject.
Keywords: flipped classroom, Community of Practice (CoP), instructional design,
blended courses, teaching, teaching biology, higher education
Introduction
Since the time of correspondence studies,
the ideal approach to the design of
distance education courses was teambased
in nature (Diehl, 2013). As distance
education has evolved to include the use
of online learning environments, the basic
premise of course design has not changed.
Instead of expecting faculty to become
experts in the technical aspects of online
course design and content creation (e.g.,
developing web pages and designing interactive
simulations), the team approach to
online course design provides faculty access
to instructional designers, programmers,
web developers, etc. to assist in the
development and teaching of an online
course, thereby allowing the faculty to focus
on content (Ko & Rossen, 2010).
At many smaller institutions, however,
there are fewer resources and design
staff, leaving much of the work of course
design and development up to the individual
faculty member. This can lead faculty
to feeling overwhelmed and underprepared
for the task of online course design,
especially since many who are asked to
teach online have no training in basic instructional
practices (Baran, Correia, &
Thompson, 2011). Distance education administrators
at such institutions have the
unenviable task of finding innovative ways
to provide faculty support and development
opportunities in order to build skill
A
West Virginia State University
85