Integrating digital technologies in the classroom: Lecturers' views on the flipped classroom approach

Abstract

The 2016 Good University Guide demonstrated that Australian rural and regional universities are outperforming more established, and highly internationally ranked city peers in relation to student perceptions of the quality of teaching that they experience. Recently, many universities have encouraged academic staff to rethink the delivery method for subjects and give consideration to the further development of significant online components. Lecturers at rural and regional universities are increasingly encouraged and supported to include a variety of online resources in their subjects and to explore the use of promising methods such as the ‘flipped classroom’. The ‘flipped classroom’ is an innovative pedagogical approach and is a technique that has garnered a lot of attention among school-based and tertiary educators. It is important to identify what influences successful implementation of information and communications technology (ICT) for augmented learning in the context of the flipped classroom. This paper briefly outlines aspects of the flipped classroom approach and looks at how the school of Education, in a regional Australian university servicing rural and remote areas, in particular, is integrating this approach in their pedagogy. This paper reports on interviews conducted with the lecturers at the university about their views, understanding, and challenges of the learning and teaching environment in a flipped classroom approach. This paper also reports the lecturers’ perception of student learning when a ‘flipped classroom’ approach is adopted. As a variant of blended learning and an innovative pedagogical approach, it was found that the flipped classroom approach has gathered a lot of attention and challenges among university lecturers.