The flipped classroom, disruptive pedagogies, enabling technologies and wicked problems: Responding to ‘the bomb in the basement’

Authors: Hutchings, M. and Quinney, A.

Journal: Electronic Journal of e-Learning

Volume: 13

Issue: 2

Pages: 105-118

eISSN: 1479-4403

Abstract:

The adoption of enabling technologies by universities provides unprecedented opportunities for flipping the classroom to achieve student-centred learning. While higher education policies focus on placing students at the heart of the education process, the propensity for student identities to shift from partners in learning to consumers of education provides challenges for negotiating the learning experience. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are grappling with the disruptive potential of technology-enabled solutions to enhance education provision in cost-effective ways without placing the student experience at risk. These challenges impact on both academics and their institutions demanding agility and resilience as crucial capabilities for universities endeavouring to keep up with the pace of change, role transitions, and pedagogical imperatives for student-centred learning. The paper explores strategies for effective change management which can minimise risk factors in adopting the disruptive pedagogies and enabling technologies associated with ‘flipping the classroom’ for transformative learning. It recognises the significance of individual, cultural and strategic shifts as prerequisites and processes for generating and sustaining change. The analysis is informed by the development of a collaborative lifeworld-led, transprofessional curriculum for health and social work disciplines, which harnesses technology to connect learners to humanising practices and evidence based approaches. Rich data from student questionnaires and staff focus groups is drawn on to highlight individual and organisational benefits and barriers, including student reactions to new and challenging ways of learning; cultural resistance recognised in staff scepticism and uncertainty; and organisational resistance, recognised in lack of timely and responsive provision of technical infrastructure and support. Intersections between research orientations, education strategies and technology affordances will be explored as triggers for transformation in a ‘triple helix’ model of change, through examining their capacity for initiating ‘optimum disruption’ to facilitate student-centred learning, role transitions, and organisational change. We share the findings of ‘our story’ of change to harness the positive utility of these triggers for transformation through deploying strategies for negotiating complexity, including the requirement for a shared vision, a robust team approach, the need for ongoing horizon scanning and application of soft skills (e.g. active listening, timely communication) necessary in order to build student confidence, academic partnerships, and facilitate organisational dexterity and resilience in the face of barriers to change.

Source: Scopus