Flipping All Courses on a Semester: Students' Reactions and Recommendations

Several universities have adopted flipped learning methods for teaching, offering increased student interaction, and different approaches to course preparation and learning processes. Flipped learning appears particularly well suited for engineering educations, as it can combine active and problem-based learning (PBL) activities. In spring 2019, a research project challenged a 4th semester at the Medialogy BSc programme to a 'flipped and integrated semester', where all courses applied flipped learning, and used the approach to integrate students' coursework into their semester project work. To measure the effect of the flipped and integrated semester approach, the 4th semester teacher team collaborated to include several initiatives, such as cross-course teaching activities, student activities for course- and project-integration, and integration-supporting supervision approaches, etc. Student responses to these changes were diverse, and while a part of the students were positive, there is a definite room for improvement. Most requested improvements included a strong semester structure and planning and an explicitly clear relationship between courses and the project. Flipped and integrated semesters require a lot of planning, communication, need a holistic structure and has to be transparently communicated to students. Also among students' main requests for improvement, were a consistent flipping approach across courses, clear connections between homework preparation material and in-class activities, and the inclusion of short introductory in-class clarification of preparation material before any in-class activities. If properly motivated to follow the steps, students found that the flipped classroom format could increase learning.