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How do I make flipped learning inclusive?

As with all teaching and learning at York, it is important to carefully consider inclusive practice as part of your flipped learning design.

Flipped learning is an approach that can readily support more inclusive teaching and learning. Indeed, there are many cases where flipped learning has been specifically implemented as part of an overall strategy to improve the accessibility of learning, teaching, and assessment activities.

However, it is important to understand that implementing a flipped learning approach is not automatically accessible or inclusive. Planning and prepartion is required to maximise the benefits of a flipped approach, and to avoid introducing new kinds of challenges.

Inclusive active- and flipped learning

When flipped learning is adopted, it is common for synchronous sessions to become more focussed on active learning, and/or to incorporate more student-centred activities.

Active learning allows students and educators to engage with each other in new ways, and to monitor each others' understanding and progress. As a result, such approaches have been frequently shown to make a strong positive contribution to more inclusive teaching and learning.

However, active learning will often entail significant changes in the nature of learning activies. These changes can present additional or new challenges for students, especially in cases where learners have limited previous experience of active-learning practices.

There are a number of practical steps that can be taken to manage these challenges:

  • To address potential learner anxiety, educators should be transparent in communicating the nature of the learning journey to students. They should explain how students will be taught, and why engagement with active learning activities will enhance their learning, for example by providing them with multiple ways of learning or the opportunity to learn from others.

  • Students should be invited to ask questions about their learning and to give feedback, and clear communication channels should be set-up to facilitate this.

  • Consideration should be given to establishing a supportive and inclusive learning environment, both in 'face-to-face' learning and online. Appropriate methods of engagement and collaboration should be modelled and scaffolded, and collaborative and/or group activities should be planned to encourage positive participation.

  • Student engagement should be monitored, both online and in synchronous sessions. It will be important to check-in with non-participating students, asking questions or seeing if they are stuck.

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Creating accessible flipped learning materials

Flipped approaches will usually entail expanding the use of pre-sessional online content and learning activities.

Providing more learning content asynchronously allows students greater flexibility in how they engage with these materials, and can give learners more opportunities to review, revisit, and engage with learning materials at their own pace.

However, as student success will depend upon their engagement with these learning materials, it is important this content is prepared and delivered in ways that ensure their accessibility.

Key considerations here will include:

  • When using the VLE and online learning equivalent platforms, standard guidance should be followed to ensure that online learning content and activities are set-up and managed in ways that support their accessiblity for a range of users.

  • All self-created video and audio materials should have corrected subtitles and transcripts.

  • Learning materials such as documents and presentations should be prepared in ways that maximise their accessibility for users with different needs, including students who may rely upon adaptive technologies such as screen readers.

  • Where additional video and other media and materials are a key part of the learning content (e.g. videos on YouTube or other platforms), the accessibility of these materials should be considered. If existing transcripts or subtitles are of a poor standard, summaries of the content or additional, alternative resources may need to be provided.

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