Tuesday, November 18, 2014

                Alternative learning method such as online learning, hybrid learning and flipped classroom are a good medium in enhancing teaching and learning process for both educators and students. Undeniable it did promote enormous advantages to the education system if its turn out like what it supposed to be. It is also changing continuously and it represents a great opportunity to spark students’ interest towards the lessons. In fact, it is an easy and productive method to achieve knowledge in almost every field such as education, medical, accounting, engineering and so on. It is also a great way in replacing traditional style of teaching and learning to a more modern and interactive way apart from it proves to be a great alternative as students have the chance to study in their own time and especially for free. Though these type of alternative learning, students don't have to come to class anymore and get the face-to-face experiences like the typical way of learning and teaching. It will benefits students who stay far from their school or university. However, there is slight difference between these three methods as mentioned by researcher:

“Flipped Learning has been compared to online, blended, and distance learning because of the screen cast or video components, but, there are clear differences. Online education, for example, occurs only remotely, and the teacher and student are never face-to-face (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005). Virtual class meetings, assignments, and lectures happen online through a course management website usually, but not always, asynchronously. Sometimes the lectures and other activities are augmented by group chats or other means of facilitating collaboration and peer instruction.

“Blended classes also have an online element, but that usually occurs during class time along with direct student-teacher contact (Allen, Seaman, & Garrett, 2007).”

                However, despite all the benefits mentioned above, the implementation of online learning, hybrid learning, and flipped classroom are quite hard to be done here, in Malaysia. There are only small amount of location that offers all the facilities needed in order to implement this method into the institution such as schools and universities. Unfortunately, most of schools and universities in our country did not able to equip all the element needed such as the program of ‘online learning, flipped classroom, hybrid learning’ itself! There are only several institutions who offer this type of learning to the learners and most of it offered by private institutions.

                Since I've presented about ‘flipped classroom’ on previous class, I will discuss several issues more in depth about it. As mentioned before during our presentation, flipped classroom is a method of blended learning and teaching which students learn about the target topic by watching video lectures in advance before come to class. The videos was prepared by their educators and it is like an ‘imagery classroom’ since they listen to a real lecture but in a more relax and informal atmosphere. They can watch the video anywhere and any time (as long as before they come to class) they want and once they entered their ‘real classroom’ they are all prepared and have the basic idea about what they should aspect on that day. In fact, there will no lecture given in the classroom. Instead, more interactive activities such as presentation, Q&A session were done in classroom with educators, and for students to discuss and solve questions. It will indirectly enhance their creative and critical thinking skills in the target area.

              Vice versa, in conventional classroom, lecture is given in the classroom while homework will be given for students to attempt to once they get back home. In this situation, students will have chance to understand more in depth about the topic since they are prepared right from entering the classroom and they’ll have ample of time to ask anything that are not clear to their educator in the classroom. In addition, it also provide convenient schedule for both learners and educators. Due to the emphasis on students becoming the agents of their own learning rather than the object of  instruction, the Flipped Classroom can enable educators to make the shift from teacher-driven instruction to a more student-centered learning.
           
               Alternative  learning is indeed still  relatively young methods in our education system that promising a rich future of breakthroughs. New models of teaching are already emerging that have the potential to take flipped classroom to even greater accomplishments. However, note to be taken, it will not turn out to be like what it is expected if there is no changes in term of attitude of the students, educators, parents, culture in our education as well as our Ministry of Education itself!

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for your blog entry, Hanisah. I appreciate you reading and citing research/academic articles that talk about online education/hybrid learning/flipped classroom. The flipped classroom, for one, is definitely a good way that teachers and learners can use online technology, and at the same time still retain the humane aspect of teaching, i.e., teacher-student relationship/communication. While hybrid learning is quite popular in many parts of the world now, I do agree with you in that the lack of technological advances in Malaysia, the idea of flipped classroom might still be curious. What is important is that institutions that offer these flipped classroom lessons should also be responsible in providing adequate technology for the teachers and learners to partake in this form of online learning. On top of that, when teaching using an online medium, teachers also need to consider not only the technical aspects (such as the availability of computers and the Internet), BUT also the pedagogical aspects, such as the course objectives/goals, the topics of lesson, the best forms of communications, and many other things. Hopefully, in the future all teachers will take all of this into consideration when they decide to do flipped classroom.

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