Amalgamating a large group of diverse students through the synergy of a flipped classroom design and differentiated instruction

How do you activate a large group of students with different backgrounds and interests? Declining staff-to-student ratios will only reinforce this widespread challenge. This project aims to tackle these challenges through course design strategies that exploit the synergy between a flipped classroom approach and differentiated instruction. To address differences in pre-existing knowledge, students can process a series of knowledge clips at their own pace, complemented by remedial tools and more challenging and in-depth content. Valuable contact time is used for clarification, with a formative quiz prior to the lecture showing where the difficulties are, and for applying acquired knowledge to new problems and cases. This is done through a diverse set of activities, ranging from games to role-playing debates. To guide and evaluate this approach, Learning Analytics is used based on the various digital learning environments (e.g. Canvas, Panopto and ANS). In short, when resources are limited, innovative course design can facilitate differentiation and in-depth learning.

As part of the CLI Fellowship, Pieter and Peter's work includes developing around 50 knowledge clips and 5 animation videos, including corresponding sensemaking activities.