Flipped classroom: A method to improve writing academic skills in pre-graduate and post-graduate students

Abstract

Flipped classroom method of teaching has received the attention of both researchers and educators. Contrary to the traditional classroom model, in which students sit passively in the classroom listening to a lecture, in the flipped classroom the instructional content is provided before the classroom session, often online. Therefore, classroom time is devoted to perform more enriching activities that help to apply the previously given material. We present a teaching innovation project in which we used the flipped classroom to increase self-confidence, decrease anxiety and improve pre-graduate and post-graduate students´ performance in academic writing. A pre-post experimental design was followed. In the first part of the project, three videos were designed to cover the key competences to be acquired by the students. The videos were recorded using power point and review questions were inserted in them via Ed-puzzle platform. Students watched these videos and, to put the knowledge acquired through the videos into practice, they were offered a practical, two hours long lesson. During this lesson, different activities related to academic writing were performed. Also, students’ questions and doubts were answered, and common misconceptions were reviewed. Our preliminary results show statistically significant differences in students’ self-efficacy, level of anxiety and the academic writing performance before and after participating in the program. Thus, at the end of the program, participants seem to have improved their writing skills, show lower levels of anxiety and higher self-confidence.