Case Study: Flipping Online Webinars

Abstract

Many of you will be familiar with the idea of flipped classroom of flipped learning. This case study takes some of this didactic approach and allowed students to learn independently. Students can then attend a lecture based on group learning activities - providing a far more interactive experience. Susan has taken this approach to the delivery of her live online sessions.

“I used to do this in the classroom and allow students a far longer period of time to go to the library and discuss a case study. What I found was that many of the students were socially loafing and not applying themselves and many of the more diligent students complained about this. I think using this technology is even better than face to face because I have a little bit more control over the time and the management of the students whilst enhancing their engagement and learning.”

Susan uses a part of the webinar system called breakout rooms. It allows you to seperate students into small separate online spaces where they can discuss a particular issue or task together for a short period of time and then bring them back together into the main room when the task it complete.

There are 250 plus students on this particular module and it is one of the largest in the institution. What is also interesting is that it is a cross disciplinary module that brings together students from areas such as policing and psychology. All the students have some level of understanding around the subject of psychology but they have different perspectives and theories about how they are applied in their particular subjects. After the initial 5 weeks where the students are introduced to different theoretical perspectives of forensic psychology, the students then learn to apply this knowledge to two real world problems through problem-based learning. Each problem has 3 parts to it: The antecedents, the crime, and the post-release history. Susan organises 250 students into six groups and timetables an activity for each of those groups in rotation so they cover all three aspects of each problem over two three week periods.

All of these sessions have one common theme to explore a particular case study. The details of that case study are covered in a 10-minute sections. Each 10-minute facilitated learning section is followed by a breakout room activity which maybe anything from a collaborative literature search, to finding case notes or similar case studies. After the breakout sessions, students return to the main room to share and reflect on their learning experiences. In the next facilitated section more of the story is revealed to help reframe some of their thinking when they have further information.

“This is all about deepening the learning at each stage.”

Tasks are pre-designed to maximise learning and develop metacognition. Breakout groups are pre-allocated so that there is a mix of disciplines in each room to ensure there is range of perspectives and create a much more vibrant discussion. The tasks are usually quite short, focused on discussing a particular aspect of the case and applying their theory knowledge and sharing that understanding. They are expected to feedback in the main room once the task is completed.

Susan uses the in-built timer to make all of the students reappear in the main room after 10 minutes. This may seem like a short period of time for students to complete a particular task but Susan is interested in generating and maintaining a sense of excitement and motivation. There is also an explicit motivation for the students to engage in these live sessions because they will miss so much of the information and knowledge of their peers from different subject areas.

“I'm so excited about this particular move online that I'm dedicating more time to developing a workbook which goes into the details of one case study showing them how the theories link and giving them more examples of the different viewpoints from the different subject areas.”

Top Tips
Get the students to take a screen grab or photo of the instruction slide which tells them about the task before they disappear into the breakout rooms, otherwise they may not remember what they were meant to do.