On-line learning practices of millennial students in the flipped classroom

Millennials designate the generation born between 1982 and 2005. The millennials have a unique relationship to information technology which they consider an integral part of life. They tend to be always busy, impatient, and with a short attention span, which leads them to multitask using various forms of electronic communication and devices. Millennial students are team-oriented; they prefer working in cooperative groups and learning experientially through trial-and-error (hacking). The flipped classroom approach was popularized around 2007 as millennials were in high school. In this approach, short recorded lessons available online for the students to view before coming to class replace traditional classroom lectures. Class time is used for application exercises usually done in groups, experimentation, and other team activities in which student learning takes a central role. The flipped classroom approach appears wellsuited to accommodate the unique characteristics of the millennial generation2. We investigated the lesson viewing patterns of two cohorts of engineering students enrolled in two college-level junior and senior flipped classroom courses on basic analog electronics and LabVIEW programming. The electronics course is offered in the Spring semester and comprises an even mix of juniors and seniors (~45 students/class). The programming course is offered in the Fall and Spring semesters to seniors (~25 – 40 students/class). Short (< 20 min) narrated PowerPoint lessons were posted on the Learning Management System. The latter kept track of whether the students viewed the lessons entirely (coded 1), in part (coded 0.5), or not at all (coded 0). The sum of the codes expressed as a percentage of the maximum represented the “viewing score” for each student in each course. The viewing scores of 56 students who enrolled in both courses were highly and positively correlated (p < 0.01) suggesting that students tended to watch the lessons with similar assiduity for the two courses. There was no correlation between the viewing score and the final exam score in the analog electronics course (p = 0.22) while there was a significant positive correlation (p < 0.01) between the viewing score and the final exam score in the programming course. This observation could be linked to the availability of a textbook for the electronics course such that a fraction of students could have learned the course material mostly from the textbook. The video lessons were the main source of learning material for the programming course, such that viewing the lessons diligently would have benefited performance on the final exam. In the programming course, students had a lower viewing score for the Spring semester compared to the Fall (68 ± 28 vs. 85 ± 21, p = 0.02), possibly because getting closer to graduation decreased their motivation to study. These results suggest that millennial engineering students vary in their approach to online learning in the flipped classroom with some students favoring traditional learning sources. Use of online lessons can be used to better understand the students’ learning habits. Introduction and background The millennial generation designates students born between 1982 and 2005. Several traits have been identified that characterize the millennial students2,3 including being constantly connected electronically to the internet and to each other, such that finding information online for immediate consumption is natural to them. Being part of a constantly evolving network of classmates and friends leads the millennials to be team-oriented and to find personal validation in the success of the group. Teaching methods that promote active learning in groups fit the team-oriented predisposition of millennial students4. The millennials are high achievers and expect immediate feedback for their work. Several previous studies reported that traditional teaching methods, particularly the lecture, are ill-adapted to the characteristics and learning styles of millennial students2,4. In contrast, various reports suggested that the flipped classroom approach which started to be popular when the first groups of millennial students were in high school presents several characteristics that are suitable to the millennial generation1,5. Content material is usually delivered electronically through recorded video lessons or screencasts. The video lessons can be curated to focus on the most essential content and limited to 20 min or less which appeals to short attention span of the millennials3. The flipped classroom emphasizes learning as opposed to teaching with group problem solving, collaborative activities, and other forms of active learning that keep the students engaged and active. The active learning activities performed in groups in the classroom with instructor guidance represent a distinct difference between the traditional lecture and the flipped classroom that renders the latter mode of instruction better suited to the distinct learning style of the millennial generation2,3. The flipped classroom appears well adapted to acquiring procedural knowledge, including engineering problem-solving because the procedural steps can be presented succinctly in the video lessons5. The students gain abundant practice applying the procedures in class with guidance from their classmates and from the instructor. The flipped classroom promotes several principles for good practice in undergraduate education6. Frequent and informal contacts between students and the instructor take place while the instructor roams the classroom and works with the student groups on their problem-solving activities7. Students are engaged in active learning and work in groups. Discussing and explaining to one another their problem-solving strategies strengthens knowledge acquisition8. Implementation of the flipped classroom approach in engineering courses increases students’ performance on exams in upperclassmen (college juniors and seniors) in comparison with traditional lecture-based teaching7. For the present study, we tracked the video lesson watching habits of engineering upperclassmen in two required courses of our curriculum. For the same course, we found differences in the fraction of video lessons watched by students in their last semester of study before graduation when compared to taking the same course the prior semester. Students tended to watch video lessons with similar levels of regularity across courses. Assiduity in tending to the video lessons correlated with exam performance only for one of the two courses examined in the study.