Flipped Classroom im Physikunterricht

Abstract

Flipped Classroom inverts traditional teaching methods by delivering direct instruction in online learning videos. The students watch the videos at home so that class time is freed up for student centered and collaborative activities that allow a deeper exploration of the content. By outsourcing lectures, the role of the teacher shifts from instructing to coaching the students. The quasi-experimental pre/post-study with control group examined the effects of flipped classroom applied to basic physics courses at two German secondary schools with N = 151 students in a three-months-treatment. Eight 11th grade physics courses took part in the study that was conducted in the school years 2015/16 and 2016/17. Four of five teachers involved in the study taught both control and treatment courses. All videos were produced by the teachers and incorporated real experiments to ensure an authentic physics education experience. The research questions focused on the performance in a content knowledge test as well as noncognitive attitudes such as motivation, interest and self-concept. In addition, perceived teacher support and homework habits were also evaluated. Applying flipped classroom in physics school education showed largely positive results. The students in flipped classroom had a higher gain in cognitive learning and a better selfconcept than those in a traditional classroom setting. Physics aptitude as well as gender did not moderate these effects. Whereas the motivation to engage in physics declined in the control group, it remained unchanged in the treatment group. In particular, female students in flipped classroom developed a higher motivation to engage in physics than their female peers who lost motivation in the traditional classroom. The interest in physics as a school subject decreased in both groups. The perceived teacher support and the average length of homework stayed the same in both groups between pre- and post-test. However, the homework discipline was considerably higher in flipped classroom which showed that students were more likely to watch instructional videos than do traditional homework.