International experiences related to the modernization of the academic didactic approach by means of the flipped classroom

Abstract

Flipped classroom represents an action directive aimed at modernizing the educational approach by which the school should prepare the youth for tomorrow's great challenges. Our communication will aim at presenting the history of this idea, its characterisation, the presentation of several international experiences at the academic level and the expression of suggestions for the Romanian universities. The first experiments on this issue were made by Eric Mazur (Harvard, 1990), Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams (2007) and Salman Khan (2004). We shall present briefly several experiences related to the organisation of the flipped learning within the universities: Washington in Seattle, British Columbia, Michigan, Paris Descartes (Faculty of Medicine), Catholic University of Lille (Free Faculty of Sciences and Technologies), Paris-Est Marne-la-Valleé. Flipped Learning makes an inversion of the didactic approach: the direct instruction from the traditional perspective will be done before the meeting with the teaching staff whereas the laboratories and the seminar rooms will host interactive learning activities, pointing out the group activities, with applicable and creative character. The four pillars of Flipped Learning: F- Flexible Environment; L- Learning Culture; Intentional Content; P-.Professional Educators (Flipped Learning Network, 2014). We are presenting below the characteristics of organising the teaching-learning process under the shape of the flipped classroom (Jon Bergmann et al, 2011). We are using the contributions of the Belgian professor Marcel Lebrun (2011) with the purpose of pointing out the main force lines of the didactic approach of the flipped classroom type (Stanciu M., 2015). The implementation of this teaching-learning strategy supposes the existence of a technological support, which involves a modernization of the academic didactic space in accordance with the real tendencies of the daily life. We have in view the existence of learning platforms for the students who attend the daily courses; the posting, on these platforms, of video sequences related to the themes of the course, to other support materials for the individual learning, to guides for the tasks that have to be done by students (individually or in a group) etc. The implementation of this kind of approach involves, on the other hand, an ample continuous training process of the involved teaching staff. Therefore, we are also thinking of the possibility to access structural funds that should bring along the necessary logistic support and the achievement of experimental research on this issue.