20230616 Flipped Learning: Dive Deep with Productive Failure (by Prof Manu Kapuar)

Some new perspectives and takeaways from the 1.5h session. 

The key takeaway from the session is the 4F approach to Flipped Learning: FAIL, FLIP, FIX/FORM, FEED

Heard about "Productive Failure" - which is not new actually... heard this many years back but had not really take a look at what it is. Literary, it is about learning from failures which are opportunities created for students so that they learn from these attempts that would potentially lead to failure. 

This session has unveiled (to me) the thinking and intent behind it - which is active learning, a deliberate approach to get students go through experience where they could learn something new or are required to put together some knowledge and skills to solve an unstructured non-routine. Through these experiences which students should somehow capture it somewhere - in their heads or recorded somewhere, they derive or create new knowledge or bite size knowledge, followed by instructions (facilitated the teacher) that enables them to construct new knowledge/ deepen their understanding. 

Flipped learning is not new. It has been there, and was an innovative practice in the early days when technology was introduced to classrooms - a new way when students (were expected to) take ownership of their own learning and teachers would facilitate discussions to consolidate learning (where facilitation is the key word here).

• Adapting from what Prof Manu described in the form of the model, putting it simply: Flipped Learning started with "FLIP > FIX/ FORM" approach. 
• The assumption is - the students (or learners) are self-motivated and self-directed. The approach failed badly when many students or some students did not carry out the "flipped" part of the lesson, which tested teachers' ability to facilitate an uneven group of students. 
• Its true spirit would not come in play unless there is a force to push student to commit themselves to learn on their own first. On the other hand, we cannot dismiss that, there are students who are actually self-driven and would benefit from this approach very well; unfortunately, not to the mass. There are too many factors. 

To deepen the practice (flipped learning) as Prof Manu described... I would say, to make flipped learning work (more) effectively, it would be necessary to introduce some elements of engagement in lesson/ activity design. 

When it comes to flipped learning, most of us would think of some passive activities like reading notes or watching video - which of course, Prof Manu pointed out that these seemingly passive activities actually requires students to use their brain to actively process what they read or watch! But, it's considered a lower form of activity. He is right! The brain must be doing something else nothing goes into the head! 

So, what's this engagement element? In his presentation, (of course) he advocates the introduction of Productive Failure to engage students through (hands-on) activities that require student to actively think, process, test, observe, etc.... (FAIL). Then make sense through the accompanying materials (FLIP). Back in face-to-face engagement would be the FIX stage when teacher facilitates consolidation and provides FEEDback. 

Indeed, putting the "Productive Failure" component aside - which definitely requires us to think deeper to design such experience, we could generalise the FAIL stage to just active learning (which could take different forms, e.g. experiments, onsite survey, observations, problems, construction of ... (models), etc. This engagement would probably bring in more success to Flipped Learning.

• Activity (active engagement, individual or small groups) | Flipped (prepared materials - read/ watch) | Classroom consolidation | Feedback to Practice or work done