A student-led evaluation of flipped learning: developing ‘cooperative blended learning’ to build relationships and enhance learning and engagement in politics

We present a student-led evaluation of the online Level 5 Transport: Politics and Society module (TPS).

We present academic and student perspectives.

The idea for this session has been developed jointly by the module lead and two students. The presentation is student-led.

The TPS module was delivered in line with the flipped learning method. Students were expected to watch 3-4 short (10-15 minutes), pre-recorded lectures, before attending a live online workshop. Lectures were interspersed with a range of tasks, designed to embed learning, deepen learning and/or build community: taking a walkabout to notice barriers to mobility in the built environment; participating in discussion boards; reading; watching documentaries; listening to music…

In the workshops, we applied learning to solve transport-related problems, taken from that week’s news.

The learning design was successful: engagement in learning activities was high; assessment outcomes were good; module evaluations were positive.

However, there was something missing.

In this presentation, we discuss why we would choose to continue with the asynchronous learning, post-pandemic, highlighting the many benefits that this brings.

We then discuss why we would choose to conduct workshops face to face. We contrast our experiences of offline and online learning to highlight the importance of ‘cooperative learning’: learning from and with peers; learning from and through relationships; learning as part of a community. We discuss the role of body language in the development of community and mediation of power relationships. And we contrast our experience of ‘linear’ online discussions with ‘hyperlinked’ offline discussions.